


Wayland 2010: The Hangover

by wheel_pen



Series: Immortals [7]
Category: Lie to Me (TV), The Hangover (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cal and Kieran journey to Las Vegas to clean up after Cal’s wayward brother-in-law—and unexpectedly, they encounter an old enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wayland 2010: The Hangover

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Immortals are powerful Earth beings who have children with mortals and are supposed to take care of them. The different clans are inspired by various movies and TV shows.  
> 2\. The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things.  
> 3\. I own nothing, and I appreciate the chance to play in these universes.
> 
> Tem is played by Bradley Cooper, for visual reference.

_Las Vegas, 2010_

 

            Cal tried the door to the hotel villa—locked, of course. That was good, though. The last thing they needed was for someone to have broken in and stolen something or done any damage. He laid his hand on the electronic locking mechanism and felt the bolts draw back at his command, then, glancing around to be sure there was no one in the wide, well-lit hallway to see him, he slipped inside the room. He stood just inside the doorway, his back to the door, surveying what he could see of the expansive suite. It was almost comically chaotic.

            There was a man passed out on the floor in front of him, facedown, his eyeglasses askew on the floor nearby. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the man Cal was looking for. The Jacuzzi set before the huge floor-to-ceiling wall of windows was overflowing with bubbles and inflatable toys of a suspiciously adult nature. One of the overstuffed leather chairs was smoldering, a thin trail of smoke rising from the seat past the gaping hole in the back of the chair where something had already burned through the leather. There was broken glass all over the floor, of various colors and consistencies. Feather boas, shiny masks, high heeled shoes, and other accessories were scattered about the room in a manner that Cal assumed was not part of the room’s normal décor. The half-filled glasses and bottles on every surface were almost incidental in comparison. A chicken clucked and strutted past him suddenly and Cal nodded to himself as though he should have expected nothing less.

            There was a movement off to the side and a woman slipped out of one of the other rooms. She was a lovely young blond in a mini-dress, carrying her shoes and tiptoeing across the marble floor. Cal stood so still that she didn’t notice him until she was quite close.

            “Oh!” She froze and stared at him in surprise.

            “Watch that glass there,” he pointed out courteously.

            “Oh, um, thank you,” she replied in a soft voice, wary of the unconscious man in the room. “Are you with the hotel?” she added tentatively, conscious of the damage to the room.

            “No,” he assured her quickly. “I’m just looking for Tem.”

            Her expression remained nervous. “Did Mr. Chow send you?”

            Cal raised an eyebrow, wondering what exactly had transpired the night before (and not for the first time). “No.” She didn’t appear to believe him. “I’m his brother-in-law, actually. Heard he’d been getting up to some excitement here.”

            The woman smirked—she certainly didn’t disagree with the rumor. “Well, I’m Jade,” she introduced cheerfully.

            “Of course,” he replied, shaking her hand. “I’m Cal.”

            “I was just going out to get some coffee for everyone,” she whispered. “I think they could use some, and I didn’t want to call for room service.”

            “Good idea,” Cal agreed. He pulled three twenties from his pocket. “The coffee’s on me, alright?”

            Her eyes widened just slightly. “Thank you,” she told him, taking the cash. She slipped from the room and Cal made sure the door closed behind her firmly. He wasn’t sure if she was really planning to come back or not—he almost preferred not, as that would give him more time to deal with the situation at hand and one less person in it.

            Having seen all he could see from his current position, Cal cautiously moved further into the room, glass crunching under his shoes as he walked. The wanton destruction continued with every new angle, but there were no surprises. Cal crouched down by the unconscious man and checked his pulse—it was strong and steady. One less thing to worry about.

            Cal straightened up and began to explore the room further. He found one man passed out behind the bar, apparently with no pants on—he didn’t intend to look very closely. Another man was actually in one of the bedrooms, actually in bed, though wearing the remains of a nice suit. Both were alive, if not exactly alert.

            Cal finally found the person he was looking for in another of the bedrooms, sprawled in a pile of blankets on the floor. And he wasn’t alone. Cal sighed and knelt down beside the redhead also entangled in the blankets. He touched her bare shoulder, willing her to consciousness, and she began to stir with a groan. As she came to Cal reached across the man’s bare back and touched the _second_ woman.

            “What the h—l…” the redhead muttered, beginning to gaze around.

            “Good morning,” Cal told her, snagging a robe that had been draped over a piece of Roman statuary. “Here you are. How do you feel?”

            “Like s—t,” she replied, lurching to her feet. “Where’s the john?” Cal pointed her towards the bathroom.

            “Hello, good morning, here you go,” he said to the second woman, handing her a sheet. It was the best he could do under the circumstances.

            “Thanks,” she mumbled blearily.

            “Do you feel alright?” he inquired politely.

            “Not especially,” she admitted in a scratchy voice.

            “Well, perhaps you’d be good enough to—“

            There was a sudden scream and the redhead came rushing from the bathroom. At the same time the man on the floor jerked awake, looking around wildly.

            “Tiger!” the redhead sputtered. “There’s a f-----g tiger in the bathroom!”

            “What was that noise?” asked a groggy voice, and the man who’d been passed out in the main room stumbled in. “Who are _you_?” He seemed to direct this question towards all of the strangers in the room.

            Tem rolled over and sat up, rubbing his face tiredly. “S—t,” he sighed when he saw Cal.

            Cal stood and stretched out a hand to the new man. “Cal Wayland. I’m Tem’s brother-in-law.”

            “Oh,” the man replied dully, trying to pull together some semblance of politeness. “I’m Stu. Uh, Stuart Price. Uh, Dr. Stuart Price.”

            “He’s a dentist,” Tem clarified from the floor.

            “Hey!” the redhead shouted, making everyone wince. “I _said_ , there’s a tiger in the bathroom!”

            “What?” Stu blinked dully.

            “There’s another bathroom just this way,” Cal offered smoothly, pointing her in the right direction. “And another one over there,” he added to the second woman. “Mind the broken glass now.”

            “Tem, what the h—l is going on?” Stu asked his friend plaintively.

            “I dunno, man,” Tem admitted with a defeated sigh. “I can’t remember anything.”

            Cal decided to step in. “I’m sure we can get everything sorted out,” he told them, perhaps a little patronizing but Stu wouldn’t pick up on it. “Maybe I could take everyone to breakfast downstairs at the—“

            Thinking of food, Stu promptly vomited on the floor. “Um, sorry,” he coughed awkwardly.

            Tem’s eyes widened as he stared at the other man. “Oh my G-d, Stu—did you—did you puke up a _tooth_?”

            “What?!”

            “You’re missing a tooth, dude!” Tem replied, crawling out of the blankets and across the floor. He seemed to mostly be wearing his pants from the night before—but Cal didn’t think the two women had just been there to keep him warm.

            Stu clapped his hands over his mouth frantically and felt around. “Oh my G-d! My primary incisor!” Both he and Tem steeled themselves and glanced down at the pile of vomit.

            “Um, I don’t see it,” Tem decided.

            “What _the h—l_ …” Stu moaned, utterly confused.

            Tem glanced back at Cal, who was waiting with impatient stillness, and helped his friend to stand. “Look, why don’t you check on Doug and Alan,” he suggested. “See if they have any ideas.” Stu nodded and shuffled off, still worrying his vacant gum. Tem shut the bedroom door behind him and slowly turned back to face Cal. “S—t,” he repeated.

            “That about sums it up,” Cal agreed.

            “I do not remember anything from last night,” he professed, rubbing his throbbing head.

            “I believe it,” Cal told him. “That’s what happens when you let yourself get trashed like a human.”

            “Yeah, I feel… unusually terrible,” Tem assessed, checking himself over. “Oh G-d, are those _bruises_?” he asked, indicating the black-and-yellow splotches along his ribs.

            “Looks like it,” Cal agreed, striving to be unimpressed with his brother-in-law’s antics. “You’ve got some blood on your face, too.”

            Tem’s hand went to his swollen jaw. “S—t.” He closed his eyes briefly, then checked the bruises again. They were unchanged. “I get it,” he told Cal a bit testily. “I’m being blocked, aren’t I?”

            “Well what did you expect?” Cal asked reasonably. “If you’re going to be so out of control you have to face the consequences.”

            Resigned to discomfort, Tem began to search the room for his things. “Those two girls were with me, huh?” he guessed.

            “Yes.”

            “S—t.”

            “Yes,” Cal agreed, a bit of a harder tone in his voice. “The only reason you haven’t been exiled in the past is because the elders know you haven’t been in your right mind at the time.”

            Tem rolled his eyes and grabbed his shirt from a bedside lamp. “You make me sound crazy.”

            “Some people think you are,” Cal shot back, “which would be very dangerous for you indeed.” They both knew what happened to those of their kind who lost their grip on reality. “I don’t know if the elders will take your excuse yet again,” he went on. “You’ve been banned from Starkmoon’s territory, anyway.”

            “Good G-d,” Tem scoffed. “What could I have done that even _Starkmoon_ would ban me?”

            “I was told you and your friends bungee-jumped off the roof of the casino,” Cal replied dryly, “only without the bungee cords.”

            Tem’s face lit up with a grin. “ _Seriously_?” This was obviously the wrong reaction to have and he tried to sober up. “Huh. Wow.”

            “Yes, wow indeed,” Cal repeated sharply. “You’re lucky it wasn’t caught on film. Now go take a shower and clean up.”

            With a sigh Tem turned to the ensuite bathroom. “Holy s—t,” he exclaimed when he opened the door.

            Cal came up behind him. “Yes, how do you think the tiger plays into this?” he asked with mild interest, gazing at the large feline in the middle of the room.

            “No f-----g clue,” Tem admitted. He looked back at Cal. “Hey, can you make it, you know? Since I’m blocked and all.”

            “Fine,” Cal allowed, calming the beast so it wouldn’t hurt Tem while he was around it. “But you’re going to have to fix this later.”

            Tem walked past the tiger—now as tame as a housecat—and started the shower. Meanwhile Cal began using his powers to straighten up the bedroom—reforming a glass from the shards on the floor, putting the blankets back on the bed, straightening the furniture, dividing the tossed-about clothes into neat piles. He felt sorry for the housekeeping staff who were going to encounter the rest of the wrecked villa—and the bill for the cleaning was probably going to come to him anyway. Not that the money really mattered, it was more the effort to fix everything and the strong impression it would leave with people—the strong _negative_ impression.

            “I’ve brought Kieran with me,” Cal said conversationally, over the roar of the luxury shower.

            “Who?” Tem called back.

            “Our son, Kieran,” Cal repeated. “Your nephew.”

            “Oh yeah. Huh. Why?” Tem finally asked.

            Cal smirked a little. “Oh, I like to involve him in these little adventures,” he replied, “so he can see how things are done in our world. And Gillian wanted him to meet you.” Tem didn’t have anything to say to that—no doubt he didn’t understand why anyone would _want_ to meet him, any of his own kind anyway.

            He finished his shower and dressed quickly in the fresh clothes Cal had conjured for him. “So we need to make sure your friends are alright, and get those two women properly set up,” Cal listed matter-of-factly, “return this animal, get this place cleaned up, find out if there’s any other damage to be undone, and then get out of town.”

            “Oh, is _that_ all?” Tem replied dryly from the bathroom.

            “You’re to come back to New York with me,” Cal informed him. “Your father’s there—“ Tem let out a groan of despair. “—and no doubt he’ll want to talk to you.”

            “Hey, I gotta stop by and see my kids before we leave town,” Tem put in.

            “What part of ‘banned from this territory’ didn’t you understand?” Cal asked him, not unkindly.

            Tem stuck his head outside the bathroom door, a fierce expression on his face. “He can’t keep me from seeing my kids,” he said, with the steely determination Cal remembered from the past.

            “No, I suppose not,” he conceded. “But no lingering.”

            There was a knock on the bedroom door and it was opened tentatively by the woman in the sheet. “Um, hi,” she ventured. “I think I left my clothes—“

            “Of course, come in,” Cal assured her. “I expect they’re over there.” He indicated one of the piles on the bed. She hurried over to scoop them up. “Listen, sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

            “Oh, um, it’s Deneicea,” she replied, shaking his hand.

            “I’m Cal, his brother-in-law,” he went on, pulling a business card from his pocket. “Look, if you find that you need anything, anything at all—“

            “I can do it,” Tem interrupted peevishly, taking Cal’s place. “I’m not a child.”

            “Clearly not,” Cal replied dryly.

            Tem took a breath and turned on a dazzling smile for the woman. “Deneicea,” he began, taking her hands. “I had a really good time last night.” Cal coughed in the background. “Okay, to be honest I don’t remember much from last night. But just looking at you, I’m sure I had a great time. Where did we meet again?”

            “At the Zenith Club at the Luxor,” she reminded him.

            “Hmm, okay.” Clearly that location meant nothing to him. “What time was that?”

            “About four AM.”

            “Thanks. Here.” He handed her his _own_ card, which actually had contact information for Starkmoon’s people on it. “Keep this. If you find that you need anything, like, hmm, medical attention—“

            Cal winced a little. “Why would I need medical attention?” Deneicea asked suspiciously.

            “I don’t know, just if you _do_ ,” Tem insisted, “like if you get pregnant or something—“

            “From last night, he means,” Cal clarified.

            “—then call me, okay?” Tem finished to the bemused woman. “Let me give you some cash for a cab.” His wallet was, as usual, pleasantly full—not always a plus, especially in a town like this.

            “Okay,” Deneicea agreed, taking the card and the cash. “It was nice to meet you, Tem. I had a good time last night, too, and I _do_ remember it.” She smiled flirtatiously.

            “Oh, really?” Tem grinned, pulling her closer. “Maybe you’d like to refresh my—“

            Cal cleared his throat behind them and Tem reluctantly let her go. “Another time,” Deneicea promised. She gathered up her clothes and the sheet and left the room.

            “Well, she seems nice,” Cal said in the silence.

            “Yeah, they always do,” Tem sighed. He looked around for the first time. “Nice job with the room.”

            “Thanks.” Cal shut the bathroom door so the tiger couldn’t wander out. “Let’s see what else is going on out there.”

            They were about to open the bedroom door to leave when it was flung open by the redhead, nearly smacking Tem in the face. Fortunately Cal grabbed it in time. “Where’s my clothes?” she demanded in a brassy voice. Cal pointed towards the bed and she stomped over and started to change right in front of them.

            “Um, sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Cal said politely.

            “That’s ‘cause I didn’t throw it, buster,” she snapped, pulling on her underwear.

            “Right.” Cal drifted back to Tem’s side. “Your turn. You’re not a _child_ , after all.”

            Tem rolled his eyes but put on his game face again. “So… I had a really good time last night,” he began charmingly.

            “Yeah, you sure did!” she agreed crudely.

            “—but I’m afraid I don’t recall your name,” he added charmingly.

            “I bet you don’t, you were pretty messed up last night!” she cackled.

            “She seems nice,” Cal murmured.

            “I didn’t pick her for her personality,” Tem muttered back. Her best assets were clearly on display as she dressed in front of them. “Look,” he went on in a louder voice, “I’d like to give you some cash for a cab, and—“

            “A _cab_?” she squawked indignantly. “I was promised a thousand bucks, and believe me, I earned it!”

            Cal suddenly found the armoire behind him extremely interesting as Tem fished a thousand dollars out of his wallet without lightening it appreciably. The redhead watched this with interest. “There you go.”

            “Say, are you some kind of rich guy?” she asked. “I don’t gotta leave, you know…”

            “Unfortunately, you do,” Cal swooped in quickly, guiding her out the bedroom door and through the suite. “But I’m sure you contributed greatly to the festive atmosphere last night, and Tem might want to contact you again. How can he reach you?”

            “My name’s Sherlene,” she finally told him, “and I’m usually in front of the Luxor every night.”

            “Of course,” Cal agreed. “Here’s his card, you feel free to call him if you need anything. Lovely to meet you. Good-bye now.” He pushed her out the villa door, knowing Starkmoon’s nymphs would follow her and get an address.

            Tem was still stuck in the bedroom doorway, eyes wide as he surveyed the damage to the room. “Wow. _Someone_ had a good time last night.”

            “Well, it wasn’t _me_ ,” Stu insisted, emerging from one of the bathrooms looking marginally more kempt. Except for the gaping hole in his teeth he kept playing with.

            “I don’t think it could’ve been _me_ , either,” groaned another man, staggering over to a couch and collapsing on it.

            “Doug, man, what happened to you?” Tem asked uselessly, hurrying over to him.

            “I feel like I’ve been boiled alive,” he moaned. His skin was indeed unnaturally red.

            “Wow, you look like a lobster,” a chubbier man observed, reaching out to poke at him.

            Tem grabbed his hand in irritation. “Leave him alone, Alan. Go put some pants on.” He gazed down at his friend again. “You look like you’ve been sunburned. But how do you get a sunburn at _night_?” Clearly Doug didn’t know.

            “Well, if everyone would care to get cleaned up a little,” Cal suggested, inserting himself into the conversation, “perhaps we can reconstruct the evening’s events.”

            “This is my brother-in-law, Cal,” Tem introduced. Grunts greeted him in response, but Cal was impressed they had tried.

            “Are you, like, French or something?” Alan asked curiously as Tem helped Doug to the bathroom.

            “English, actually,” Cal corrected, though this was of course only true in a certain sense.

            “But Tem isn’t English,” Alan persisted. “Or _is he_?” He had a disturbingly intense stare.

            “No, he’s not,” Cal agreed, glancing at Stu for support. The other man was still preoccupied with his missing tooth, however. “I’m just married to his sister.”

            “Oh, I didn’t know his sister was English,” Alan nodded, as though everything suddenly made sense now. Then he wandered off, hopefully to get dressed.

            Tem came back without Doug. “Don’t use that bathroom,” he warned Stu, who appeared to be heading towards the room Tem had slept in last night. “There’s a tiger in there, remember?” That was enough to make the other man veer off in another direction. Finding themselves alone in the main room, Tem headed for the bar. “Hair of the dog that bit me,” he shrugged unapologetically when Cal gave him a look.

            The other man was pulling out his cell phone as he absently cleaned up. “Hey, Kieran, are you okay?” he asked when the teen answered. He’d left him in the restaurant downstairs.

            “ _Yeah, I’m fine_ ,” Kieran replied, sounding slightly bored. Bored was definitely better than nervous. “ _What’s going on? There’s nymphs all over the place_.”

            “Oh, just tying up some loose ends here,” Cal assured him. “We’ll be down soon. Bye.”

            “Huh. A nephew,” Tem muttered as he turned off the Jacuzzi and hit the ‘drain’ button. “I forgot you guys were having another one.” He knocked back more of the drink in his other hand.

            “Yeah, he’s a good kid,” Cal replied fondly. “Takes after Gillian. Likes to draw.”

            “Oh really? He’s an artist?”

            “How did you do that?” Both men were startled when Alan suddenly popped up near Cal.

            “Uh… do what?” Cal asked warily.

            Alan fixed him with a hard stare. “That mirror was broken. You fixed it. You made it whole again. You have magical powers.”

            Cal glanced at Tem for help. “He does _not_ have magical powers, Alan,” Tem corrected in a bored tone, as though he frequently explained obvious things to the other man. “Now go put some pants on. It’s weird that I have to ask twice.”

            “How could you _forget_ you had a nephew?” Alan persisted.

            “Because I’m a _drunk_ , Alan!” Tem told him with exasperation. He hoisted his glass as evidence. “I just woke up from a bender so bad I don’t even remember what happened, and I am already drinking again! I’ve got a teenage nephew I don’t even remember because my brain cells are being fried by booze! Is that cool enough for you?!”

            Alan shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool, I guess,” he replied, seemingly sincere.

            Tem pointed to one of the bedrooms. “Pants!”

            “I think I’ll go get some pants,” Alan decided, clearly pretending it was his own idea.

            “Thank you!” Tem snapped at his retreating figure.

            “That’s a friend of yours?” Cal asked carefully.

            “Actually he’s Doug’s brother-in-law,” Tem replied, gathering up some feather boas from the floor. “He kind of has this hero-worship thing going for me.”

            “I can see why.” Double-checking to make sure there were no witnesses this time, Cal sat on the edge of the couch and put the room back together, even wicking the spilled Jacuzzi water out of the rugs.

            “Show-off,” Tem smirked.

            “How’s the teaching going?” Cal inquired conversationally.

            Tem shrugged and went to refill his drink. “Eh, good days, bad days,” he decided, his tone indicating the bad days had been more prevalent lately.

            “You know, we really admire you for your work with those kids,” Cal told him. “No, seriously. I wish more of us worked with them so directly.”

            “Well, you guys are busy,” Tem remarked with just a hint of bitterness, “taking care of other stuff.”

            Cal had nothing to say to that, and Tem didn’t either. Fortunately right about then the others came stumbling back into the living room, looking slightly cleaner than before. “Man, I do not remember a thing from last night,” Doug confessed with a yawn. He glanced around the room. “Huh, it doesn’t look as bad in here as I thought before.”

            Tem gave Cal a look and sat down at the coffee table with Doug. “Okay, let’s try to figure this out,” he decided, grabbing a crumpled cocktail napkin and a pen. “Anyone know anything about the tiger?” he asked hopefully.

            “Is there seriously a tiger in the bathroom?” Doug asked. “Like a _real_ tiger? Not just, like, a stuffed tiger or a housecat or something?”

            A roar from the other room answered his question and Alan stumbled out backwards—fortunately wearing pants now—and knocked over several things Cal had previously set right. The others stared at him as he scrambled back up, tried to clean up what he’d knocked over, made the mess worse, then gave up and tried to look as though he’d meant all that to happen. “So, there’s a tiger in that bathroom,” he pointed out coolly. Tem looked over at Doug, who conceded the point.

            “Okay, I remember being up on the roof,” Tem went on, trying to get them back on track. “With our shots of Jager, courtesy Alan,” he added, which pleased the odd man greatly.

            “Yeah, that was fun,” Doug agreed fondly.

            “It was, wasn’t it?” Tem smirked. Cal rolled his eyes.

            “What about my _tooth_?” Stu insisted indignantly.

            “Sorry, I’m drawing a blank, pal,” Tem admitted. “I remember going to dinner at The Palm,” he went on, scribbling on the napkin, “and then hitting the blackjack table… somewhere…” He frowned. “That takes us through ten o’clock at least.”

            “I don’t remember the blackjack,” Doug confessed.

            “I don’t remember dinner!” Stu added. Then, “Hey! _That’s my tooth!_ ” They all stared at the impressively large, yet slightly gruesome, object that Alan was holding. “What are you doing with my tooth!”

            “I dunno,” Alan replied, as if it were somehow Stu’s fault. “I found it in my pocket.”

            “That’s a good idea,” Tem decided. “Everyone check your pockets from last night.” Of course, this entailed that Cal magically transfer whatever had been in Tem’s old pants pockets to the ones he was currently wearing—silly him, he’d thought the man would appreciate clean pants. “I’ve got a… valet parking ticket from here for 5am. That’s important. Oh, and we were at the Zenith at Luxor around four, according to one of our, ahem, recently departed guests.”

            “Yeah, they were hot, huh?” Alan commented, as though he’d had anything to do with them. Which seemed unlikely.

            Stu pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “I have an ATM receipt from outside the Bellagio for… eight hundred dollars!” he shrieked. “Melissa is gonna kill me!”

            No one else gave that concern much thought. “What time was that?” Tem inquired.

            “Two-thirty.”

            “Hmm, okay.” He surveyed his timeline. “Doug? Anything?”

            “No, actually, my pockets are completely empty,” he admitted. “I hope my wallet’s around here somewhere…”

            “Okay, so, looks like we hit the Bellagio casino at two-thirty, we were at Zenith at four, and at five we called it quits and came back here,” Tem summarized.

            “Not to appear judgmental,” Cal put in dryly, “but you _drove_ last night?”

            Tem rubbed his face tiredly again. “Yes, well, let’s move past that, shall we?” he suggested with a sigh. “Okay, is there anything else we can—“ He was interrupted by a sound suspiciously like a baby’s cry. Everyone froze. “Alan, was that you?” The bearded man shook his head quickly.

            “Maybe the TV’s on,” Doug suggested. Another cry. “With high-def surround sound.”

            Not daring to hope this explanation was true, the men got up and began looking around. Alan thoughtfully checked the microwave and mini-fridge. “Over here,” Cal announced, opening a closet door. The others all crowded around him, staring at the baby in the carrier on the floor.

            “Oh my G-d!” Alan exclaimed. “Someone had a baby last night!”

            Cal and Tem gave him a look. “It’s not a newborn,” Tem corrected.

            “No, I’d say he’s about eight months old,” Cal judged, picking the child up carefully. “He seems alright. Could probably use a diaper change, though.”

            Tem grabbed a bulky bag that had been sitting beside the baby in the closet. “Looks like a diaper bag to me,” he observed.

            “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” Cal assured them.

            “He’s got a teenager,” Alan informed the others knowledgeably.

            “I’m guessing he belongs to the charming redhead,” Tem sighed as Cal began to change the baby on the bar. “Which is totally another point in her favor.”

            “Actually there was a third woman here,” Cal revealed, “a blond named Jade. Ring any bells?” It didn’t. “She was leaving just as I arrived. Said she was going to get some coffee and come back.”

            Tem sighed. “ _Three_ women?”

            “You’re such an overachiever, buddy,” Doug cracked, patting his shoulder.

            “Maybe she was with me,” Alan suggested defensively. Everyone blinked at him for a moment, then chose to ignore him.

            “Well, maybe she’ll come back and explain things,” Cal offered optimistically, picking the baby back up.

            Suddenly there was a knock on the door and everyone froze. Although most of the villa looked much better than it had only a few minutes ago, there was no way they wouldn’t be charged for several things. And besides, there was still the small matter of the tiger in the bathroom.

            “Why don’t _you_ get it,” Tem suggested, taking the baby from Cal. “You look the most respectable.”

            “I look respectable,” Alan stated.

            “No, you look kinda creepy,” Tem countered. “Thanks for putting on some pants, though.” Alan seemed pleased with the ‘compliment.’

            Cal looked through the peephole in the door and was immediately relieved. “It’s Jade,” he reported, opening the door.

            The blond walked in, laden with coffees in cardboard holders. “Sorry I took so long,” she apologized cheerfully, “but the Starbucks downstairs was really slow!” Cal took a couple trays off her hands courteously. Her eyes fell on the baby Tem was holding. “Oh, there’s my little baby! I hope he didn’t give you any trouble!” She set the rest of the coffee down on the table and took the baby herself. “Hiya, Tyler! Who’s my big boy?”

            “Are you talking to me?” Alan inquired hopefully.

            “No, Alan,” she replied in a tone of affectionate exasperation. Clearly she’d had experience dealing with him. The others shot significant yet confused glances between themselves, which Jade did not fail to notice. “Okay, guys, what’s wrong?” she asked, settling down on the couch with the baby. “You’re all acting awfully weird.”

            “Don’t take it personally,” Cal assured her, reaching for some coffee. “They just can’t remember very much about what happened last night.”

            Jade giggled a little at this, in a pleasant way. “Well I’m not surprised, you guys were really messed up! I can’t believe you’re up and about this early.”

            “Well, we had a visitor,” Tem pointed out, indicating Cal. He finally gave in and picked up some coffee and the others followed suit. “Say, what time did we, er, meet you last night?”

            “Oh, it was about three, I’d say,” Jade replied helpfully. “I’m a dancer at the Crazy Horse—you guys really tore that place up!” Tem avoided making eye contact with his brother-in-law, who was noting the location to stop at later. “I hope you haven’t forgotten what happened after _that_ ,” she added slyly, looking at… Stu.

            “Huh?” he squeaked.

            “Here, would you hold Tyler for a second?” she asked, handing Stu the baby. “The wedding album is in his diaper bag.”

            At this, Stu spewed out the coffee he was drinking—fortunately he had sense enough to turn away from the baby first and instead sprayed the coffee all over Alan, who looked as if he weren’t quite sure what to make of it. “Wedding album?!” he choked.

            Jade seemed mildly disappointed but also understanding. “Well, maybe it will come back to you,” she said hopefully, flipping open the small album. They all crowded around to see themselves in hideous powder-blue tuxedos in some cheesy instant-wedding chapel, striking ever more unlikely and inappropriate poses—with Jade and Stu as bride and groom. Tem, Doug, and Alan found this highly entertaining. A hyperventilating Stu, less so.

            Cal flipped open his cell phone. “Maybe you’d better come up here,” he told Kieran with a sigh. “We could be a while.”

            Having joined them at the relatively early time of three AM, Jade could confirm their post-wedding celebration at Luxor’s club, their connection with Tem’s two lovely new friends, and their return to the villa—after that her activities were largely restricted to Stu and sadly, she had no idea about the tiger. Cal let Kieran in _after_ that discussion was over.

            The boy’s eyes widened when he saw the interior of the villa, either at its ostentatious luxury, the remaining evidence of early-morning debauchery, or both. He tried to be cooler as he took in the picture of the people gathered around the coffee table—an attractive woman, a man with a missing tooth, a baby, a very sunburned man, a very odd man with a thick beard and unblinking stare, and, lounging dissolutely in the corner of the couch—“You must be my uncle,” he decided, reaching out to shake hands with Tem.

            “How did you know?” Alan demanded.

            “Uh, family resemblance,” the teen explained.

            “Please pretend he doesn’t exist,” Tem told him, referring to Alan. “G-d, you _do_ look like your mom,” he added thoughtfully. Kieran assumed this was a compliment.

            “So…” Kieran tried to come up with something else to say to this odd gathering. “Um, have you been in the hospital lately?” he asked Tem.

            His uncle blinked at him in confusion. “What? No, I don’t—“

            “You’re wearing a hospital ID bracelet,” Cal realized suddenly, pulling at the strip of yellow plastic around Tem’s wrist. If he felt foolish about not having noticed it before, well, it was Tem’s arm, and _he_ hadn’t noticed it either.

            “Oh my G-d,” Doug exclaimed, crowding around his friend. “Are you okay? What happened? When was it?”

            “Um, two AM,” Tem read from the bracelet. “Well, it must not have been serious, right? I mean, right after that we were back at the Bellagio.”

            “You guys _did_ say something about being at the hospital,” Jade remembered, “but you didn’t mention what for.” Tyler began to fuss and she nonchalantly pulled down the strap of her tank top and began to feed him. Everyone looked away quickly with various levels of smoothness, except for Alan, who stared fixedly. “I guess you wanna get an annulment, huh?” she said to Stu.

            “Mm, yeah, I think that would be best,” he agreed, as though it didn’t really matter to him all that much. “I mean, uh, you seem very nice, but—“

            “Nicer than Melissa,” Tem muttered under his breath.

            Stu ignored him. “—but it’s not really a good start to a relationship,” he decided.

            “Right, of course,” Jade nodded, although she seemed less certain about it.

            “Well, it seems like we have two different routes to pursue,” Cal announced. “I’d like to go back to the hospital with Tem and see what landed him there. Maybe the rest of you could go back to the chapel and… sort things out there.”

            This seemed like a good idea to them. Especially after Cal gave them a gentle mental nudge towards it. Whatever records existed in a hospital about Tem needed to be cleaned up _now_.

            The group headed down to the front of the hotel, leaving the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door of the villa. Couldn’t forget about the tiger, after all. Doug handed the valet ticket from early that morning to one uniformed attendant and Cal handed over his from slightly later in the morning. “Do you guys want to take _my_ car?” Cal offered before the vehicles arrived. “It’s got plenty of room, and there’s already a car seat in it.”

            “Shouldn’t the car be _full_ of seats?” Alan asked, in a tone that suggested there may be something wrong with Cal’s form of transportation.

            “It’s a special seat, for the baby,” Doug told him quickly. “Thanks, but I promised my father-in-law that no one would drive his Mercedes but me.”

            “Oh, come on,” Stu said irritably. “I lost a tooth and got married, and Tem ended up in the hospital. Do you really think you managed to stay behind the wheel all night?”

            “Well, look, for as long as I _remember_ I’d like to stay behind the wheel!” Doug replied shortly, wincing as his red skin pulled. “I just want to make sure that nothing happens to that car!”

            “Daddy’s Mercedes!” Alan gasped, looking over Doug’s shoulder.

            “Yes, Alan, I _know_ —“ Doug began, but then he saw the others staring, too, and he slowly turned around, fearing an undisguisable scratch or dent in the silver metal.

            Instead he saw—a black-and-white police car. “Here’s your car, officers,” the valet said with just a hint of a smirk, handing Doug the keys. Cal gave him a twenty and his face went curiously blank.

            Cal’s nondescript blue minivan rolled up as well. “It might be better to switch,” he suggested again.

            “How did we end up with a police car?” Stu moaned.

            “You had it all last night,” Jade informed them.

            “But where’s the Mercedes?!” Doug squeaked, verging on hysteria.

            “Daddy’s Mercedes!” Alan groaned, like a child missing his security blanket.

            “Holy s—t, we stole a police car,” Tem remarked with roguish delight, trying to keep his voice low.

            “Let’s switch,” Cal insisted, trading the car keys deftly. “We’ll look for the Mercedes as well. Okay? Perhaps we should start before we draw too much attention.”

            Stu, Jade, Doug, Alan, and baby Tyler finally got settled into the minivan—after some confusion from Alan over which seat was for the baby—and they drove off. Tem’s smile faded as his friends disappeared down the road. “Don’t worry, you’ll see them again,” Cal promised.

            “I hope so,” Tem replied wistfully. “They’re good friends. Do you even know what it’s like to have human friends?” Cal had to admit he didn’t. “Everything’s just—it’s brighter, it’s more intense—“ Tem tried to explain, still staring after the van. “Because any day could be their last. And they _choose_ you. All this bulls—t about _us_ choosing _them_ —those guys would do anything for me,” he swore. “And that means a lot more when they can’t do everything.”

            “Well maybe you should take better care of them,” Cal suggested. His tone wasn’t mean, just meant to bring Tem back down to earth. “You got them into an awful lot of trouble last night. It wouldn’t have happened if you’d kept your senses about you.”

            Tem seemed to suddenly remember that Kieran was with him and watching him closely. “Yeah, I guess,” he sighed. “You ride in the back, kid, you can be the perp.”

            Call rolled his eyes and walked around to the driver’s side. “Hey, this back seat is all beat up,” Kieran noted with some dismay. “It’s like someone cut it up with a knife or something.”

            “Tough town,” Tem shrugged as they started off. He turned to look at Kieran over his shoulder. “You got any buddies back in Cowtown or wherever you were raised?”

            “No, not really,” Kieran admitted. “I never really… got along with the other kids.”

            “Figures.” Tem sighed. “Corrupted already.”

            “Gertrude’s pretty cool, though,” the teen offered through the cage that separated him from the front seat.

            “Gertrude?” Tem repeated. “Ger—lemme guess, that’s a nymph, right? G-d, you let him hang out with nymphs?”

            “My nymphs are very wholesome,” Cal reminded him primly. “Not like the ones _you’re_ used to.”

            “Ah, come on,” Tem countered knowingly. “Nymphs are nymphs. Deep down they’re no different than the girls on all these flyers.”

            “Would you shut up?” Cal snapped. “Are you trying to provoke them? You think they aren’t following us right now?”

            “That’s my point!” Tem claimed. “You think they weren’t following me last night? We snag a Starkmoon nymph, we shake her down, we find out exactly what happened last night without having to run all over the g-----n town!” He tried to yank the hospital bracelet off his wrist but found that the plastic wouldn’t give way, which only frustrated him further.

            “Oh, you wanna shake down a nymph?” Cal repeated sarcastically. “You go ahead and try, especially with your powers blocked. You’ll be turned into a pile of goo before you can blink.” Tem had to admit this was true. “You can’t keep acting this way,” Cal added in a softer tone, but Tem didn’t want to hear it.

            “I’m gonna keep acting this way until something strikes me down,” he muttered, slouching in the seat.

            There was an awkward silence. Then Kieran said, “So, are we going to get in trouble for driving a police car?”

            “Don’t worry about it,” Cal assured him.

            “What he means is, it doesn’t look like a police car to anyone else,” Tem explained.

            “Oh.”

            “Right,” he agreed in a disappointed tone. “It’s not so much fun when you know nothing can happen, is it?”

            They arrived at the hospital without much more comment and soon found themselves walking down the hall alongside a doctor in scrubs. “Sure, I remember now,” he agreed, perusing Tem’s file. “You came in last night with some buddies. You were all whacked out of your minds.”

            “No kidding,” Tem agreed. “But what was wrong with me?”

            “Pretty mild,” the doctor assessed, “just a mild concussion and some bruised ribs. Oh, and a mild burn on your back right shoulder,” he added. Tem automatically reached up, trying to feel something. “You and your buddies kept saying you’d gotten tased by some cops,” he said with a tone of mild disgust, “but there was nothing out on the network about it, so we let you go. Your EKG readings were… pretty weird, though,” he went on curiously. “How do you feel today?”

            “Hungover like s—t,” Tem answered honestly.

            “Would you mind if I took a look at this, Doctor?” Cal asked cordially. “I’m actually a doctor as well. Internal Medicine.”

            “Really,” the doctor replied, giving Cal a suspicious look. “You get many cases of perioscopic sulfidosis in your practice?” Clearly, he was testing Cal’s medical knowledge.

            “Not perioscopic as much as fibrimotic,” Cal answered conversationally. “I’m from New York, we have a bigger problem with vitamin D deficiency.”

            The doctor seemed mildly impressed by this answer. “Hmm. Here you go.”

            “Thank you.” Cal took the folder.

            “Oh, that’s me, I have to go,” the doctor said suddenly, turning on his heel and leaving them.

            “Why did he do that?” Kieran asked in confusion.

            “He thought he was being paged,” Tem explained, shaking his head. “You make things kind of convoluted, you know.”

            “A little planning makes it easier in the end,” Cal muttered, flipping through the pages. “This is like looking through E.T.’s file,” he declared. “It’s a wonder you’re not in a crate in a government warehouse right now. Ah, now here’s something.”

            “What?”

            “Your bloodwork came back this morning,” Cal reported. “You had a massive dose of Ruphynol in your system.”

            “ _What_? F—k!” Tem exclaimed, heedless of the staff around them.

            “No need to worry about _that_ ,” Cal replied a bit cheekily. “But that _does_ explain the memory loss. I’m guessing you were _all_ slipped something.”

            Tem was still muttering and swearing to himself. “Ruphynol,” Kieran repeated slowly. “Isn’t that the date-rape drug? Like roofies, right?”

            The other two men stared at him for a moment. “You gotta love that public school drug education,” Tem finally cracked.

            “But I mean, _how_ could someone drug you?” Kieran persisted. “How could you even get drunk?”

            Tem at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed. “It happens if you _let_ it happen,” Cal told the boy. “You start letting _some_ things in, others can follow.” He closed the file definitively and looked around. “Alright, we’ll need all the other records about this patient, please,” he told the nurse at the desk, showing her Tem’s file. “And if you would be so kind to delete all evidence that he was even here…”

            “Of course, sir,” the nurse replied cheerfully. “I’ll get right on that.”

            “You don’t ever get tired of this?” Tem asked a few minutes later as they exited the hospital. “Of getting whatever you want?”

            Cal glanced at him. “Who gets tired of _that_?”

            “It’s _boring_ ,” Tem tried to explain, “and it doesn’t _mean_ anything. You didn’t sneak in there and get the records through stealth or charm, you just snapped your fingers and got what you wanted. You didn’t _achieve_ anything.”

            “Right, well, I don’t base my self-worth on whatever I can get away with from humans,” Cal shot back breezily. “But by all means you should definitely continue _your_ plan of stealing police cars and tigers, letting your friends marry prostitutes, and jumping off roofs. You must be feeling _very_ good right about now.”

            Tem’s jaw tightened noticeably and there was a second when he really might’ve taken a swing at Cal. But just then there was a frantic honking and Cal’s blue minivan swung into the parking lot—looking more than the worse for wear. Doug hopped out of the battered vehicle as soon as it stopped.

            “Oh my G-d, Doug, what happened?” Tem exclaimed in concern. “Are you guys okay?”

            “We’re okay,” Doug sighed. “Look, Cal, I’m really sorry about the van, we’ll pay for it—“

            “Don’t worry about the van,” Tem cut in. “What the f—k happened?”

            “We were at the chapel, right in the middle of getting Stu and Jade’s marriage annulled—“ Doug began.

            “—when these huge bada-s dudes drove up and started beating on the van with baseball bats!” Alan added. For once no one corrected him.

            “They kept wanting to know where ‘he’ was,” Stu went on. “And then they pulled out guns!”

            “They shot Eddie!” Alan wailed.

            “Holy s—t! Guys, I’m so sorry, we shouldn’t have split up—Um, who’s Eddie?” Tem asked in confusion.

            “He’s the guy who runs the chapel,” Doug explained with a sigh. “I think he was just kind of winged, though. Anyway, we floored it and got out of there.”

            “Where’s Jade and the baby?” Cal asked.

            “Oh, we dropped them off at her apartment,” Stu explained. “She was kind of shaken up over the whole ‘goons trying to kill us’ thing. We’re gonna get together later, you know, finish the annulment, maybe have dinner.”

            “Really?” Tem’s spirits lightened momentarily. “Hey, that’s great, man, congrats. You know, she seems really nice.”

            “Sorry to interrupt,” Cal put in pointedly, “but you have no idea who these people were looking for?”

            They all indicated no. “Yeah, well. I’ve got an idea of why,” Tem told them darkly. “The doctor said I was whacked out on roofies when I came in last night. I’m guessing someone slipped it to _all_ of us, and that’s why we can’t remember anything.”

            “Roofies?” the others repeated with disbelief. “What the h—l? Who would want to _drug_ us?”

            “I don’t know, man,” Tem sighed. “But look, guys, I’m sorry,” he told them sincerely, at least Doug and Stu. “I feel like I’ve just gotten you guys into trouble somehow, and—“

            “No, man, come on,” Doug denied sensibly. “You couldn’t help us getting _drugged_ —“

            “And I’m pretty sure you didn’t _force_ me to marry a total stranger,” Stu pointed out.

            “And I bet you had nothing to do with stealing the tiger!” Alan insisted, wanting to join in.

            They all thought about that for a second. “No, I’m guessing that was probably me,” Tem admitted.

            “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

            “It really does.”

            Cal at least had the grace to turn around before he rolled his eyes. He had never understood his brother-in-law’s fascination with forming relationships with particular humans—they could only be shallow and transitory at best, as the fragile humans withered away in the blink of an eye compared to them. To care for humans, yes, he understood that—to nurture them, to help them, to become _friendly_ with some and watch their lines flourish through the generations—he understood that as well as any of them. But not this idea of bonding so closely to some that you would call yourself ‘best friends,’ ‘life-long friends’—what was the length of a human’s life compared to theirs?

            But then again, Tem had been known to work around that problem in the past.

            “But everyone’s okay, right?” Tem asked again. Humans could be so easily damaged. “Alright, let’s go look for the Mercedes, then. It might be over at the police impound lot. I bet Cal can get it out for us.”

            Cal knew Tem really wanted to ride with his friends in the dented minivan, but he had no intention of letting the other man out of his sight, even to get to the main police impound lot just outside of town. Over the years—centuries—Cal had seen Tem act out several times, though never so publicly. And this was an age when _everything_ was public, when a momentary act could be flashed to thousands, even millions, around the world in seconds with a cell phone camera and an Internet connection. That was a lot of files to wipe, and possibly a lot of memories, too. Nymphs, as a whole, were not as adept with technological change as one might hope for in a modern assistant—and no one liked wiping memories.

            Tem was quieter on the journey to the impound lot, more thoughtful Cal hoped. They were beings with incredible powers, the sort of things that got them worshipped as gods in ages past, and to lose one’s hold over those powers, one’s judgment with them—to be honest it was a wonder no one had died (yet). It was clear from Tem’s behavior that even if he went right along with bad ideas, and even came up with some of his own, he usually stayed in control enough to make sure that his friends faced nothing more than an exciting adventure, “luckily” emerging unscathed—but last night everything had broken down, or so they had to assume for the moment.

            “It’s July,” Tem said suddenly as the skyscrapers began to give way to less glamorous local businesses.

            “Yes,” Cal agreed when he didn’t continue.

            “They’re probably not going to get pregnant then, right?” Tem added hopefully.

            Oh, yes, his two ‘guests’ from the night before—in these days of reliable birth control mechanisms it was considered poor form to engage in sexual activities with a mortal woman without first getting her agreement about pregnancy possibilities, at least during the cycle. Of course some of their kind cared less about that than others, but the elders were rather firm on the general principle. Cal was a big fan of informed consent himself, but again it came back to not being especially drawn towards mortals intimately.

            “Wrong,” he informed Tem shortly. “Maybe if this were October you’d be right, but there’s a good five months left in the year,” the last of this century’s cycle. “And there’s usually a couple months’ grace period at the beginning of the next year, anyway,” he added. “You’re probably looking at preemies.”

            “S—t,” Tem sighed. Reminded of his responsibilities he pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Hey, Glo,” he greeted affectionately. “Not so hot, I am f-----g hungover and I’m running around town cleaning up my mess from last night. You didn’t see me out with my friends, did you? No, I couldn’t get that lucky. You are gonna s—t when I tell you what I woke up next to this morning.” Cal gave him a _look_ ; Kieran was no doubt hanging on his every word.

            “Er, I’ll tell you later,” Tem amended. “I definitely am gonna come by sometime today—will you guys be home? Okay, cool, I’ll call you later.” He hung up, sighed, and dialed again. This time his voice was noticeably brighter and more cheerful—in a forced sort of way. “Hi, Caroline. Well, I told you I would, didn’t I? No, of course not, my friends and I have just been relaxing at the hotel spa.” Cal rolled his eyes. “Is Max available today? I really want to see him while I’m in town. Um, maybe later in the evening, the guys and I are gonna play a round of golf first. Okay, I’ll call you later then. Yes, I _will_ call first. Okay, bye.” He hung up once more.

            There was a lot Cal could say. But he didn’t want to be the stern killjoy—Tem was an adult capable of making his own decisions and mistakes. And he was also kind of funny, in a shameless and disgusting way, and Cal didn’t want to encourage him. “Kieran’s been spending a lot of time at the World History Museum lately,” he began instead.

            Tem took the hint and turned partway around in his seat. “Oh really? What’s your favorite area?”

            “Well, I’m working on a project to make art objects in the style of ten different cultures,” the teen reported, a little self-consciously. “So far I’ve done 15th-century Flemish paintings and also cubist sculpture.”

            “You started with the easy ones,” Tem told him good-naturedly. “You go back in time a millennia or so and figure out how to reproduce Chinese jade carvings or Anasazi tapestries without modern technology.”

            “Do you, um—are you into art?” Kieran asked him, still not quite certain what the proper terminology was.

            Tem shook his head. “History, that’s my specialty. Someone’s gotta do it, right?” he shrugged. “And it’s not too tough when you’ve lived through a lot of it. Though, it’s sometimes difficult to resist the urge to correct things the human historians got wrong,” he added cheekily.

            “Like what?”

            “Oh, don’t spoil anything,” Cal suggested playfully.

            “Christopher Columbus. Massive hoax,” Tem insisted vaguely. “That’s all I’m gonna say.”

            “Your uncle teaches world history in Santa Fe,” Cal explained, and the boy’s eyes widened.

            “Teaches? Like at a school?”

            “Grover T. Donaldson High,” Tem informed him in a self-mocking way. “Not among the Top Ten in the nation.”

            “It’s an inner-city school,” Cal described. “Bad neighborhoods, not much motivation. He’s very good at his job,” he assured Kieran, while Tem smirked uncomfortably. “He helps a lot of kids graduate and go on to better lives.”

            “It helps that I’m bulletproof,” Tem quipped.

            “Here we are,” Cal nodded, unfortunately having to bring the subject back to their current situation. The battered blue minivan lumbered up beside them and everyone piled out into the rising heat of the day. The sun glinted harshly off the imprisoned vehicles behind the fence, their numbers stretching off into the distance in a depressing, rusty monument to lives interrupted.

            “This place makes me sad,” Alan observed.

            “Look, why don’t you guys wait here, and we”—Cal indicated himself and Tem—“will see if they have the car.”

            “Um, how are you going to do that?” Doug asked, polite but firm. “You know, we really appreciate your help so far”—Cal got the feeling he’d been the subject of much conversation lately—“but driving up to the police impound lot in an, um, ‘borrowed’ police car seems kind of risky…” Stu and Alan watched his reaction closely.

            “Oh relax, guys,” Tem assured them expansively, putting his arms around Doug and Stu, with Alan awkwardly trying to cling on. The effect was to not-so-subtly align himself with the humans in the group. “Cal’s a fixer. He knows how to get things done. If the Mercedes is on this lot he’ll get it back. Maybe he’ll use the cop car as a trade-in,” he grinned.

            Cal narrowed his eyes at Tem. He had plenty of other things he could be doing besides cleaning up Tem’s messes, after all. “Yes, don’t worry, I’ll look into it,” he promised. “But _don’t_ go anywhere,” he added, directing that remark squarely at Tem.

            “So, Stu, tell me more about Jade, dude,” Tem said just as pointedly, turning to his friend. “She is super-hot, I’m really proud of you.”

            Cal rolled his eyes and headed for the rickety office building. Doug followed. “I’m the one responsible for the car,” he reminded Cal nobly. “Maybe I can help somehow.”

            Tem gave Cal a questioning look but Cal just shook his head, resigned. “Sure, come on,” he allowed. He didn’t want to waste his time arguing over a point of honor with a human—they tended to have rather strong feelings on the subject. He decided not to summon Kieran to join them but rather left him with the others, hoping his presence might inspire better behavior.

            A bored police officer sat behind the desk in the impound lot’s office, reading a magazine about weaponry and probably heartily regretting whatever offense had caused him to be banished here. When he saw Cal and Doug enter he sat up with a suspicious expression. “Can I help you?” he asked, in a not-very-helpful tone.

            “Yes, I was wondering if you might have my friend’s car on the lot here,” Cal began cheerfully, softening the man’s mind to his purposes. No need to get into an argument about it before persuading him, especially not with Doug present. “It’s a—well, I’m not very good with cars,” he confessed to Doug. “I’ll let you describe it.”

            “Sure. It’s a 1969 Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet, silver,” Doug reported, clearly not sure how this was going to work. “The license plate is—“

            “Oh, excuse me a minute,” Cal interrupted, pulling a piece of paper and a pen from his pocket. “Perhaps you should write that down.”

            “Um, okay,” Doug agreed. The police officer blinked at them curiously, as Cal wasn’t sure what else to have him do. There was some debate among their kind as to whether this kind of mental manipulation was harmful to humans; but Cal didn’t do it very often so he wasn’t too worried. Humans did far worse things to themselves anyway. “Here it is.”

            Doug handed the note with the license plate to Cal, who handed it to the officer. Doug seemed weirded out by the man’s lack of response, so Cal had him say, “Of course, sir, I’ll just look this up in our database and see if it’s here.” He tapped on his computer a few times, mostly for effect. It didn’t matter where that car was thirty seconds ago—it was _now_ somewhere on this impound lot. “Yes, here it is, sir,” the officer replied. “It was picked up at about 4am in the middle of Los Angeles Boulevard.” That part was true.

            “Oh, wow,” Doug replied, partly relieved and partly still confused by the events of the previous night. “Um, is there _any_ way I can get it back?” he asked hopefully. “Is there, like, a fine I could pay or—“

            The officer stood abruptly. “I’ll just bring it around for you, sir,” he said, and he walked out of the building.

            Doug stared after him. “That was—a lot easier than I was expecting,” he admitted, not fully trusting this turn of events.

            “Don’t try it at home,” Cal warned. “I slipped him some cash with the license plate note.”

            Understanding spread over Doug’s sunburned face. “Oh! Wow, that makes a lot more sense,” he agreed. “Um—we won’t get into trouble over this, will we? I mean, there’s got to be records about—“

            “Don’t worry about it,” Cal assured him. “I’ll take care of it.”

            He sounded, perhaps, a bit too casual, as if he bribed police officers every day. “What is it you do again?” Doug asked.

            “Art,” Cal replied. “I have an art gallery and antique store in New York City.”

            “Oh. And you’re, uh, married to Tem’s sister? His biological sister, I mean.”

            “Yes, one of them,” Cal nodded, intrigued by the other man’s phrasing. “Have you known Tem long?”

            “Oh, yeah, since grade school,” Doug enthused. “It’s always been me, Tem, and Stu. We’ve been through a lot together.”

            Cal had momentarily forgotten about the rather elaborate lengths Tem liked to go through to carry out his charade of humanity. “Grade school, hmm?” he repeated. “You must know his parents, then. Er, adoptive parents.”

            “Oh yeah, John and Mary are great,” Doug assured him. “Have you ever met them?”

            “You know, I never have,” Cal confessed, which was true. “Seems like it would be a bit awkward. Do they still live in Santa Fe?” He was quite curious about how this part had worked. Were they actual humans Tem had manipulated into posing as his parents, or were they utterly fictional constructs Tem had created as socially-required accessories?

            “Actually as soon as Tem left for college they started traveling,” Doug told him. “They’ve been all over the world—Australia, South Africa, all over Europe. I’ve only seen them a few times in the last fifteen years.”

            “Well, that’s their name, right?” Cal grinned, going for the easy joke. “Traveler?” He guessed fictional constructs, in that case. Very clever.

            “Right, yeah,” Doug smiled politely. There was a moment of silence. “You know, I’ve known Tem since he was seven years old,” he went on thoughtfully, “and the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing him was those six months when he went to New York City to meet his biological family.” His tone was leading.

            “Before my time,” Cal shrugged, though not dismissively. “I’ve heard some stories, though,” he added encouragingly. He could make up something funny to pass on—

            “Sometimes, when Tem gets really drunk and he’s in, I guess, a certain kind of mood,” Doug went on, more seriously than Cal had expected, “he talks about a girl. A girl he must have met in New York, because she’s not someone we ever knew.”

            Cal’s eyes widened slightly. “What’s her name?”

            “Maya,” Doug replied, and Cal worked to keep his expression neutral. “I don’t mean to pry,” he assured the other man quickly. “I know he doesn’t like to talk about her sober. But it seems like he was so in love with her, and then—something happened, I guess. I mean, Tem’s always been a big hit with women,” he added with a smirk, “but it seemed like this Maya was really something special.” Cal was at a loss for words, surprised that Tem had talked to humans about this and was momentarily unable to think of an appropriate cover story. Doug took his silence for disinterest, or even disapproval. “Well, it’s really none of my business anyway, it’s just that he’s my friend and it really seems to have affected him—“

            “Um, Maya, yes,” Cal finally responded. “I guess I wasn’t quite sure about her name, but I think I’ve heard something about her.”

            “You have?”

            “Well of course, I don’t really know a lot of details,” Cal cautioned him, “but I think he _did_ meet a girl when he came to New York, and, I guess, fell in love with her.” This, Doug knew already. “Then she, um, she disappeared.”

            “Disappeared?” Doug repeated in surprise.

            “Yes, disappeared,” Cal agreed. He tried not to think back on it himself; it was supposed to be ‘before his time,’ after all. “I think they were going to get married—“

            “Tem sometimes calls her his wife,” Doug revealed. “And sometimes he mentions kids, too, but of course that’s impossible. There wasn’t time.”

            “Well, I think they were very much in love, and probably _meant_ to marry and have kids,” Cal reasoned, and Doug nodded.

            “But then she just disappeared,” he prompted. “What happened?”

            “No one really knows,” Cal admitted, and that was the truth. “One day she just vanished. Maybe there was an accident, or maybe—“ Inspiration struck. “Maybe she was an illegal immigrant and she was picked up and deported. I’ve heard that idea before.”

            This explanation seemed to strike a chord with Doug. “What nationality was she?”

            Cal raced for an answer. “Um, I think she was Latina,” he decided. Technically more like Native American, he supposed.

            Doug looked very thoughtful, which might be bad—Cal hadn’t meant to give him _too_ much information on the subject. “You know, every summer Tem goes down to Mexico,” he remembered.

            Cal nodded. “His archaeological digs. It’s a hobby.”

            Doug fixed him with a look. “What if he’s still looking for her?”

            For a moment a genuine smile, if a slightly sad one, flashed across Cal’s face. It was sweet, really, the concern Doug displayed for his—friend. Cal wasn’t often in a position to see a human concerned for one of their kind. Especially not when they actually did have _reason_ to be concerned. He tried to pull the conversation away from such a heartfelt tone. “Do you really think Tem is that sentimental?” he asked, clearly expecting the answer to be ‘no.’

            But Doug surprised him again. “I do, actually,” he said slowly. “A lot of people look at Tem and see just the surface—devil-may-care, arrogant, reckless,” he smirked. “But I’ve known him a long time, I’ve seen him with his kids, his students—he really cares about the people around him and wants to help them. I mean, why would he become a schoolteacher?” Doug reasoned. “Shouldn’t he be, like, I don’t know, a bartender or something? So he can get free drinks and meet hot women all the time?” Cal had to admit that sounded more likely.

            “But no, he’s a teacher,” Doug went on, “and it’s a c—p school, too—I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but there’s metal detectors and security cameras and police in the halls—half his students are gang members or drug dealers or something. He risks his life every day going there,” Doug said fiercely. “But he really cares about those kids and he wants them to succeed. And they _are_ , because of him—I hear stories about it all the time, from other friends who are teachers or work in Public Aid. I think if Tem loved that woman that much—he’d never stop looking for her.”

            “Well. Maybe you’re right,” Cal allowed after a moment. And he was. Absolutely. “I’m… glad you think so highly of him.”

            “Well… he’s still a crazy b-----d sometimes,” Doug replied, slightly embarrassed by his earnest speech. “I bet you anything stealing that tiger was _his_ idea.”

            “Oh, no doubt,” Cal agreed. He decided it was about time the car got here. “Come on, let’s go outside,” he suggested. “I just saw the car go by.”

            Doug’s focus shifted immediately. “Oh, G-d, did it look okay?”

            “Um, it was still the right color,” Cal offered vaguely. He actually wasn’t sure what condition the car would show up in.

            The others turned towards them expectantly when they stepped out of the office. “It’s here!” Doug announced with slightly forced cheer. “They’re bringing it out!”

            “How did you manage _that_?” Stu asked with slight suspicion. Doug gave him a look that said he would explain later.

            “See, I told you,” Tem assured them jovially. “Cal has magical powers.”

            “Ha! I thought so!” Alan announced triumphantly.

            “Not _really_ , Alan,” Tem corrected with a sigh. No one else needed the clarification.

            “It’s gonna be beat to h—l when we get it back,” Stu predicted pessimistically as they heard a familiar motor approaching.

            “If I’ve _got_ it, I can fix it,” Doug prayed hopefully.

            “Daddy’s spent _years_ finding parts for it,” Alan reminded them. “He missed my eleventh birthday to go to Germany for a piston. But he _did_ bring me back a Nazi helmet, which was cool.” No one knew quite what to say to that. “Do _you_ have a Nazi helmet?” Alan asked Kieran conversationally.

            “Um, I—“

            “Here it comes,” Cal interrupted, just in time.

            “Oh, I can’t look,” Doug decided, whipping around to face the opposite direction. “Just tell me.” The silver car sailed up and stopped before them. “Is it that bad?” Doug asked fearfully in the silence.

            “No, it’s _fine_!” Tem replied in shock, and Doug whirled back around. Though badly in need of a wash—and no doubt sand had gotten into the tires, because Doug had completely forgotten about putting Armor-All on them—there was not a scratch or dent to be found. The four friends started whooping and dancing around in relief as the police officer climbed out of the car woodenly, handed the keys to Doug, and went back to his office.

            “It’s like everything is finally going right!” Alan exclaimed giddily, which brought the celebration to a halt. No one liked tempting fate that way.

            “Perhaps we ought to go back to the hotel now and deal with the tiger,” Cal suggested, just to further ground them. It seemed to do the trick.

            Doug took the wheel of the Mercedes with Stu beside him and Alan in the back, while Cal and Kieran headed to the minivan. “Hey, did you fix the car up?” Tem asked in a low voice, jogging after them.

            “No, that was just how you left it,” Cal replied, “in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard at four AM.” He tried to maintain his tone of vague disapproval, but really, that was one of the lesser excitements of the night before.

            “Well, thanks for getting it back anyway,” Tem told him. “It means a lot to Doug. And Alan,” he added with a smirk. “I thought he was gonna cry there for a minute.”

            Cal shrugged lightly. “I’ll meet you four back at the hotel,” he added, reaching for the minivan door.

            Tem’s eyes widened. “You’re gonna let me ride with them?” he checked excitedly.

            “Don’t make me regret it,” Cal warned.

            “That’s great! You won’t!” Tem enthused, already running back towards the Mercedes.

            Cal shook his head, wondering if that had really been a good idea or not. “Come on, get in,” he told Kieran. “We need to be right behind them all the way.”

            “So… you’re able to fix all these things with your powers?” Kieran asked slowly as they drove down the highway back towards town. Cal indicated yes as he kept a close eye on the Mercedes. “Well, why don’t you just—I mean, it seems like a lot of trouble, driving everywhere,” the teen tried to articulate. “And the tiger! How are they gonna deal with that? Wouldn’t it just be easier to, like, snap your fingers and put everything back the way it was?”

            “I suppose I _could_ do that,” Cal allowed, “but what would it teach Tem? Or his friends. That they could do whatever they wanted because someone would always come along to bail them out?” He shook his head. “No. We have to know how to control ourselves.”

            “With great power comes great responsibility,” Kieran stated, and Cal glanced at him. “Spider-Man,” he explained.

            “Ah. Well, I suppose your life does seem rather like a comic book sometimes,” Cal agreed. “But even humans have to face the consequences of their actions,” he added. “I doubt Tem was forcing drinks down their throats all night. They wouldn’t learn anything if I just— _What_ are they doing _now_?”

            The silver Mercedes was weaving wildly in front of them—fortunately there wasn’t much traffic—and then it pulled off onto the dirt at the side of the road, sending up a cloud of dust as it braked hard. Muttering under his breath Cal pulled over as well, watching in bemusement as something small was flung out the side window. There was a pause, and then suddenly both doors of the Mercedes were flung open and everyone scrambled out of the car like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

            “Come on,” Cal sighed, getting out of the van. “What are you—“

            “There’s someone in the trunk!” Stu shouted, which was not at all what Cal expected.

            “Tigers have babies, don’t they?” Alan asked fearfully, and Doug stopped fumbling with the keys to the trunk, glancing around at the others uncertainly. Cal put an arm out to prevent Kieran from getting any closer.

            “Okay, I’ll do it,” Tem offered, taking the keys. “Back up a little.”

            He inserted the key into the lock, turned it, then paused a moment. Everyone held their breath, but there was no unusual sound from the vehicle. Slowly, Tem lifted the lid of the trunk.

            And then a naked man leaped out with a scream, wrapping his legs around Tem and whacking at him with a crowbar.

            After several long seconds of cursing and shouting Doug and Stu managed to yank the man away from their friend. For their troubles they both got smacked with the crowbar and yelled at in Chinese. Cal was probably the only one in a position to appreciate the glory of the insults. He couldn’t blame the man, though—whatever else had happened, he’d been trapped in the trunk of a car, in the desert, all night.

            “You gonna f—k on me?!” he demanded of Alan, swinging the crowbar menacingly as he advanced on the other man.

            “No, no, I’m not!” Alan insisted, backing up. “I’m on your side! I hate Godzilla, too!”

            “Oh G-d,” Cal sighed. “Don’t worry,” he added to Kieran. “He can’t see us.”

            “He destroys cities! He’s mean! I hate him!” Alan avowed desperately, as the naked man closed in on him making high-pitched squawks.

            Tem dragged himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the car. “Hey, listen—“ The man turned on him, clipping his face with the crowbar, then he spun back around and jabbed Alan in the belly. Still shouting, he threw the crowbar to the ground and ran off, naked, towards the city.

            Cal decided this was a good time to make his presence known again. “I have internal bleeding,” Stu intoned, struggling to sit up on the ground. “Could someone call 911?”

            “No, you’re fine,” Cal assured him, making certain he was as he helped him lean against the car. “Just a few bruises, nothing serious,” he added to Doug, then helped Alan sit up against the tire. “You’ll be fine.” He turned to Tem last and found he had fresh blood spattered all over his shirt from some injury near his mouth. “Are you alright?” he asked with the tiniest hint of sarcasm, doing nothing for _his_ injuries.

            “No, I’m good,” Tem insisted fiercely, clambering to his feet on his own. “But _what_. The _f—k_. Was _that_!” he shouted into the desert air.

            “Hmm. You know, Jade mentioned a Mr. Chow this morning,” Cal observed thoughtfully.

            “Why didn’t you say that before?!” Tem demanded, wiping blood off the roof of the Mercedes.

            “Would any of you have remembered the name?” Cal asked rhetorically. “No, I thought not.”

            “This is f-----g insane!” Doug vented. “Why can’t we remember anything? I’ve never been so hungover before!”

            There was a moment of silence. Then, Alan spoke up from the ground. “Guys, I have to tell you something,” he began with trepidation.

            “This should be good,” Cal predicted dryly.

            “What is it, Alan?” Doug sighed.

            “I put something in the Jagermeister last night before we did the shots on the roof.”

            Everyone turned slowly to stare at him. “ _What_? Why?” several voices asked in alarm.

            “I thought it was Ecstasy,” Alan went on miserably, staring at the ground. “It was only one hit each! I used to do three hits a night.” And why didn’t Cal find that surprising? “I just wanted everyone to have a really good time last night, and I knew you guys wouldn’t take it otherwise!”

            “Right, ‘cause we don’t want to be _on drugs_!” Doug finally reacted.

            “And it _wasn’t_ Ecstasy, Alan, it was roofies!” Stu snapped.

            “Do you think I knew that, Stu?” Alan pointed out reasonably. “The guy who sold me the drugs seemed so trustworthy!” Sadly Alan seemed completely sincere in this statement.

            Suddenly Tem started to laugh. First a little chuckle, then it grew until he could no longer stand on his own, he was laughing so hard. Alan started to join in nervously but stopped when he saw no one else was. Tem leaned against the car clutching his bruised ribs and trying to catch his breath as the absurdity of the situation overwhelmed him. Cal put a hand over his mouth to keep his own smile from showing. It wasn’t funny—no, not at all—just the idea of someone like Alan drugging someone as powerful as Tem—or maybe someone as powerful as Tem _letting_ himself be drugged by someone like Alan—

            Finally Tem started to calm down. “Well, er, at least it was someone we know,” he gasped out, trying to be helpful. “And not some stranger drugging us for G-d knows what reason.”

            “Yes, that’s _so_ comforting,” Stu replied acidly, refusing to help Alan up.

            “Hotel. Tiger. Alright, guys?” Cal prompted, trying to keep them focused. Granted, a lot of obstacles were being thrown in their way right now. And Cal just had a feeling they were going to meet up with that naked man again, somehow—those kinds of things just couldn’t happen without consequences.

            They piled back into their respective vehicles, the four men climbing into the Mercedes more stiffly than before—taking a few whacks from a crowbar had a way of making a fellow feel less energetic, even if Cal had healed the worst of the injuries.

            “That was really weird,” Kieran understated once they were back in the van.

            “You know, there’s no need to tell your mother _all_ the details of this trip,” Cal decided.

            “What do you think happened to that guy?” There seemed to be a hint of genuine concern in the boy’s tone.

            “He seemed pretty tough to me, I wouldn’t worry about him,” Cal replied reassuringly.

            Fortunately the rest of the trip back to the hotel was relatively uneventful and the four men were soon trudging back down the hallway to the villa, rather the worse for wear. And compared to how they’d left that morning that was really saying something. Cal and Kieran followed at a safe distance, now wary of the others’ trouble-attracting properties.

            “What if the tiger got out?” Alan worried as they approached the villa door.

            “I don’t think it could get out, I shut the bathroom door,” Tem assured him.

            “Yeah, but tigers are really smart,” Alan persisted. The others shushed him as a wholesome-looking couple passed them in the hall, giving them a strange look. “If any felinid could figure out how to work a doorknob, it would be a tiger.”

            “Where did we even _find_ a tiger?” Doug hissed futilely.

            “I don’t know, I can’t remember,” Stu replied pointedly, glaring at Alan.

            “Okay, let’s do it,” Tem decided, inserting his room key in the slot. He slowly pushed the door open and nothing leaped to attack him this time, so they continued in. “Did we leave the music on?” he asked in confusion, as Phil Collins blared from the room’s speakers.

            Suddenly there was a movement at the piano and they all froze. It wasn’t an orange-and-black felinid, however, but rather a large black _man_ , with a tattoo down the side of his rather distinctive face.

            “ _Mike Tyson?_ ” Tem said in shock.

            Cal put his hand out to stop Kieran from going farther into the room, having noticed the equally large and menacing bodyguard off to the side while the others were goggling and starstruck. “We’re not here.”

            Mike Tyson waved his hands to shush them. “This is my favorite part,” he announced, referring to the song. A drum solo began and he mimicked drumming, then began singing along in a not-very-tuneful voice. “Could I get a little chorus here?” he told them. “’I can feel it coming on the edge of night…’”

            “’Oh Lord,’” sang Alan while the others looked questioningly at each other. His participation seemed to make Tyson happy, so when the next chorus rolled around, everyone joined in enthusiastically. “’Oh Lord’—“ And then Tyson punched Alan and dropped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

            “There was no reason for that, man!” Tem protested boldly as Doug and Stu checked on the unconscious man. “I mean, I really admire you, you were awesome in that fight against Holmes, but—that was totally unnecessary!”

            Tyson seemed unmoved by this display and the other man stepped forward. “Mr. Tyson would like to know why his tiger is in your bathroom.”

            That got everyone’s attention (except Alan’s). “It’s _your_ tiger? Wow. Holy s—t.” Tem seemed to find this a little more entertaining than Tyson appreciated.

            “What do you want to go and steal a tiger for, man?” Tyson demanded with disapproval.

            “Uh, listen, Mr. Tyson,” Stu began placatingly, “we are _very_ sorry about your tiger—“

            “You see, we came to Vegas for my bachelor party—“ Doug also tried.

            “Oh, you’re getting married?” Tyson smiled. “That’s nice. Congratulations, man.”

            “Um, thanks,” Doug replied.

            The smile dropped away. “Now what about my tiger?!”

            “Look, man, we were f----d up last night,” Tem admitted, “and we tend to do stupid stuff when we’re f----d up.” That pretty much laid it out there. “How did you find us, anyway?”

            The other man held up a dark jacket. “One of you dropped this in the tiger’s cage,” he reported.

            “Hey, that’s my jacket!” Doug realized excitedly, taking it back.

            “Yeah, it had your wallet and room key in it. You all are lucky Mr. Tyson was asleep last night when you broke into his place,” the bodyguard went on ominously. “If he had been awake you wouldn’t have gotten away so smoothly.” The two men nodded at each other and headed for the door. Cal and Kieran stepped unnoticed out of the way.

            “Wait a minute,” Doug called after them. “So you got your tiger, right?”

            “Nope,” the bodyguard shrugged without concern. “You boys took it, you can bring it back. What do you think, about forty minutes?”

            Noises of disbelief met this proclamation, but they were unmoved. “Don’t make me come back for it,” Tyson warned as they left.

            As the door shut behind them Cal nodded at Kieran and walked further into the room. “Was that Mike Tyson I just saw leaving?” he asked innocently.

            “Yeah, that was Mike Tyson,” Stu replied, sounding pleasantly dazed. “I mean, it was really Mike Tyson!”

            “We _know_ it was Mike Tyson!” Doug said sharply, trying to wake Alan up.

            “Apparently it was _his_ tiger we stole,” Tem told him, though he knew Cal had seen the whole thing.

            “Yeah, and he punched Alan,” Doug added worriedly.

            Cal knelt beside the prone man and made sure he wasn’t _too_ badly injured; the others helped him to his feet and then the couch. “And we get to go to his house!” Stu added excitedly.

            “We have to go _back_ to his house,” Doug corrected, “to return the tiger.”

            “You have to return the tiger yourselves?” Cal repeated. “Huh. How are you going to manage that?”

            “Hey, Kieran, buddy, could you find us some ice?” Tem asked the teen. He drew Cal off to the side, away from the others. “I don’t know how we’re gonna return the f-----g tiger,” he confessed in a low voice. Cal blinked at him, waiting. “So could you help us out here? This could be dangerous, and these guys—“

            “You _did_ manage to get the tiger out yourselves,” Cal pointed out coolly.

            “I’m sure we must have used my powers,” Tem countered, getting frustrated now.

            Cal didn’t seem to see this as justification. “What do you want me to do? Fly the tiger home over the city streets? Teleport it instantly? Make everyone think you’re walking with a seeing-eye dog? It’s a little obvious, don’t you think?”

            “Look, this is the last thing we gotta do,” Tem hissed. “Are you really gonna waste all your time cleaning everything else up, then let me get busted with a _tiger_ at the end? A _celebrity’s_ tiger?”

            Tem did have a point. This job had already taken more time than Cal would’ve liked. And the tiger was rather difficult to explain. “I’m not going to make it easy,” Cal warned.

            “No, of course not,” Tem agreed. “I’ve got an idea. Alan,” he called, turning back to the others, “do you have any more of those roofies?”

            It was a fairly straightforward plan: they ordered a raw steak from room service, poked five roofies into it, and tossed it into the bathroom with the tiger, who was no doubt hungry anyway. “Now, all we have to do is wait,” Tem said cheerfully.

            “How are we going to get the tiger out of the room?” asked Stu.

            “Luggage cart!” Doug suggested cleverly. “We’ll just put a sheet over it.”

            “And to Mike Tyson’s house?”

            Tem looked over at Cal hopefully. “Your minivan would be really helpful,” he hinted.

            “Sorry,” Cal told him. “It finally gave out on the way back here. That’s why we were late.” Tem gave him a look. “We’ll take a cab and meet you there.”

            “The Mercedes it is,” Doug sighed.

            Tem squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll get it cleaned. You’ll roll it back to Sid looking even better than when he gave it to you.”

            There was a thunk from the bathroom and the men sprang into action. Cal made sure that the elevator didn’t stop on the way down and that the lobby was suspiciously deserted when they rolled the luggage cart through. “Must be siesta time, huh?” Tem cracked.

            “Maybe we could join the party when we come back,” Alan suggested hopefully.

            “No, not fiesta—Whatever, forget it,” Tem decided. “Let’s get this thing in the car.”

            “I guess we’re all gonna have to squeeze in the front,” Doug realized dubiously.

            “Well, it’s a quick trip,” Stu pointed out. “Someone can sit on someone’s lap.”

            “I call Tem!” Alan said eagerly.

            “Um, I don’t think—“

            “We’ll meet you there,” Cal said cheerfully, hailing a cab.

            The cab dropped them off outside Mike Tyson’s mansion, where the imposing gate was decorated with a pair of golden boxing gloves. “But he didn’t see us before, right?” Kieran checked. “So why would he let us in now?”

            “He’s not going to see us now, either,” Cal explained. He looked at the bars in the gate, which were about eight inches apart, and stepped through them sideways as if the gap were a couple feet.

            Kieran’s jaw dropped. “Whoa.”

            “Yeah, that’s a neat trick,” Cal agreed. “Come on.”

            “I can do it, too?” the teen asked, amazed.

            “Well, someday. I’ll help you for right now. Come on.” They hiked up the driveway and settled down on the front steps to wait. “The secret is to not make things too complicated,” Cal shared. “I could have opened the gate to let us in—but that would involve disabling the locking mechanism, disabling any alarm systems, making sure we didn’t show up on the security cameras, making sure no one saw us directly. Or, I could just remain invisible and play a little trick with the laws of physics.”

            “That is so cool,” Kieran breathed.

            “It _is_ cool. But look, you have to use it responsibly,” Cal reminded him. “It’s not for parlor tricks, for impressing your friends.”

            Kieran nodded seriously. “And that’s what Uncle Tem does,” he noted.

            “Well, sometimes,” Cal agreed. “I guess you’re not catching him at his best,” he admitted. “I should’ve introduced you to him earlier.” Inspiration struck. “Hey, maybe in the fall you could come out to visit him for a while, go to his school.”

            “Didn’t you say it was a really _dangerous_ school?” Kieran checked, a bit nervously.

            Cal waved that off. “Gertrude can go along and look after you. Besides, it would be a great experience for you,” he enthused. “Lots of diversity.”

            Kieran seemed eager to get away from this subject. “So—er—why does Uncle Tem do things he shouldn’t? I mean, everyone else I’ve heard of seems to act the way they should.”

            Cal’s expression grew more serious. “Well, your uncle’s always been more… um… he’s always gone his own way more,” he tried. “That’s just his nature. But he wasn’t a bad guy, not at all. I mean, he _isn’t_ a bad guy, but he was more responsible in the past.” It was difficult to impart a life lesson when you were also trying not to demonize the main character too much.

            “What happened?” Kieran prompted.

            “He fell in love,” Cal revealed, “with a mortal woman.”

            “And that’s bad?” the teen guessed from his tone.

            “It’s not common,” Cal hedged. “It’s frowned upon.”

            “And she died, and he was upset?”

            “Don’t get ahead of the story,” Cal chastised. “No, she didn’t die, because he made her immortal, so she could be his eternal bride.”

            “We can _do_ that?”

            “Yes, but it’s difficult,” Cal warned. “And it doesn’t make things perfect. It’s very difficult for mortals to adjust to our kind of existence, even if they’re made immortal. Mentally, emotionally—it’s a big leap.”

            “Tell me about it,” Kieran sighed.

            Cal put his arm around the boy’s shoulders affectionately. “I know it still seems very different to you,” he allowed, “but at least you’re meant for it. It’s who you are. But a mortal?” He shrugged negatively. “They might never adjust.”

            “So what happened to her?”

            “Well, that’s the thing,” Cal sighed. “No one knows.”

            “What?”

            “She just disappeared one day,” he explained, as he had to Doug earlier—only with more of the truth. “Vanished without a trace. And their two kids.”

            “But—“ Kieran seemed very disturbed by this. “How can that happen? I mean, to you—er, to us?”

            Cal could only indicate again that he didn’t know. “We don’t have all the answers. We’re not all-powerful,” he admitted. “And there are many forces at work in the universe that even we don’t understand.” He sighed again. “And after that, Tem started… being more reckless. Living among mortals, looking for his lost wife and children in Mexico—“

            “Why in Mexico?” Kieran asked in confusion.

            “Oh, she was a Mayan princess,” Cal added. “I guess he figures if she’s going to turn up anywhere, it’ll be there.”

            “How long ago was this?”

            “Long enough.”

            Kieran gave this some though. “What’s his last name?” he asked suddenly. “You know, like we’re Wayland, and there’s Nightbird and Stoneberry and Saltwood and all. What’s Uncle Tem’s last name?”

            “Um, well, right now his last name is Traveler,” Cal replied. “Of course he was born a Stoneberry, like your mum, and then when he got married he had a family name, but—that was his only wife and his only full-blood children, so when he lost them, he lost his family name as well.”

            “Oh.”

            “And we’re not allowed to say it,” Cal added. “It’s kind of a _thing_.”

            “Wow.”

            “Yeah.”

            For a few minutes they sat in silence, thinking this over. Then suddenly Cal’s phone chirped. He pulled it out and looked at the screen, then rolled his eyes. He touched a button and the afternoon air was filled with the sounds of swearing and horns honking. He tilted the phone so Kieran could see the video—the Mercedes was stopped in the middle of a tunnel, with the four men dancing frantically around it.

            “What is going on now?” Cal muttered, zooming in.

            “How are we seeing this?” Kieran asked.

            “Magic,” Cal told him simply. “It’s easier to frame it as a cell phone video than have it floating in mid-air or something.” The glass of a back window on the Mercedes shattered as the very much awake now tiger lashed out at his confines. Ten turned away from his friends and glared right into the ‘camera,’ pulling the collar of his shirt aside to reveal deep, bloody scratches across his shoulder.

            “Happy?” he mouthed sarcastically, before going back to help his friends push the car.

            Cal snickered. “He wants to be human, he can suffer the consequences.”

            “Those scratches looked pretty bad,” Kieran said dubiously.

            Cal waved his concerns off. “Oh, he’ll have his powers back in a day or two and be fine. Don’t worry about him. In a week he’ll be laughing and claiming his whole arm was ripped off.”

            The men had apparently decided that the only way to accomplish their mission was to push the car the last mile to Tyson’s house, with Alan designated to reach in through the window and steer. The tiger paced restlessly and occasionally let out a menacing growl as its cage rolled along.

            Alan shrieked and jumped away from the car. “I can’t do it! I’m scared!” he declared when the tiger poked its head into the front seat and snarled.

            The others encouraged him as best they could. “Come on, Alan, we need you here!”

            “It’s your time to shine, buddy!”

            “You can do it! We’re almost there!” Reluctantly he reached back in and grabbed the steering wheel.

            “So he doesn’t have extra strength right now?” Kieran confirmed, watching the video.

            “Nope,” Cal agreed. “But he has all the strength a human would in that kind of body. With three of them pushing it’s not that bad. Physically, anyway. It’s probably kind of soul-crushing,” he added cheekily.

            In the video, Tem’s cell phone rang and he continued to push the car as he checked it. “F—k!” He flipped the phone open and held it between his ear and shoulder as he pushed. “Hey, Caroline!” he said with greatly forced cheer. “I know, honey, but—right, of course. We got to playing golf and time just flew! Uh, now?” It was difficult to keep the phone in position and lend his weight to the car at the same time. “I’m at the hotel gym right now. Well, you know, golf only works certain muscle groups, I’m trying to hit the others. So, can I come by and see Max later? Yeah, I know, but maybe in a couple hours? Well, the guys and I—When? It won’t even be dark by then!” Frustration was evident in his tone. “Come on, Caroline, give me a break here! Oh, right, I forgot, it’s all about the money for you, isn’t it?” he snapped. The others pretended they weren’t listening to the conversation, even though they were right there. “G-------t, Caroline! I want to see my son! I—“ The phone slipped from his grasp and cracked on the pavement. “F—k!” He stomped on the phone hard and left the shards behind them in the street. “Something else to f-----g clean up,” he muttered. “Why does she have to be such a b---h about everything!?” he asked rhetorically.

            “Maybe she’s frustrated that the most regular support she receives from you is monetary,” Alan suggested sensibly. “Single motherhood can be emotionally draining.”

            “You steer the f-----g car, Alan, before I _feed_ you to that tiger!” Tem snapped at him, shoving the car with extra force.

            “Hmm.” For a moment Cal seemed thoughtful as he watched the men struggle along. Then he dialed a number on his phone. “Caroline, I think it would be a generous and considerate gesture for you to bring Max to Caesars Palace so Tem can see him. In two hours would be good.” Then he hung up and dialed another number, repeating the same instructions—only he was talking to Gloria about Olivia. Then he went back to the video to check their progress.

            “I guess you weren’t really… _persuading_ them to come to the hotel, were you?” Kieran ventured.

            “A little gentle pressure can work wonders,” Cal agreed. “It’s like… encouraging them to do something that deep down, they really wanted to do anyway.”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “Besides,” he shrugged, “Tem could really use a bit of _good_ news today.”

            A few minutes later the silver Mercedes appeared at the end of the driveway and was let in. Cal and Kieran moved off to the side so as not to be in the way. “Wow, what happened?” he asked innocently, making himself known again. “Did the car—“ The tiger roared grouchily, cutting him off. “Oh, I see.”

            Doug was looking at his friend with concern. “Tem, maybe we should take you to the hospital,” he suggested. “Those scratches look pretty bad.”

            “You might need shots,” Alan added eagerly.

            The shoulder of Tem’s denim shirt was indeed dark with blood, but Cal gave in and made sure he wasn’t going to start dripping. “They’re not so bad,” Tem insisted. “They’ve almost stopped bleeding anyway.”

            The front door to the house opened and the large bodyguard filled the doorway. He did not seem impressed with the tiger’s presence. “You’re late,” he accused instead.

            “Whatever, dude,” Tem dismissed, past the point of caring now. “We had to push it the last mile. You should seriously consider having that thing put down, it’s a menace!”

            The bodyguard didn’t seem impressed with this recommendation, either. “Come in,” he said, stepping aside. It wasn’t an invitation. “Mr. Tyson has something he wants to show you.”

            Wearily the four men trudged into the house, no longer even capable of appreciating its ostentatious glamour. “We’ll wait here,” Cal announced, then, fading from view, he and Kieran slipped into the house before the door was closed.

            “Mr. Tyson was reviewing some of the security camera footage from last night,” the bodyguard said as he ushered them into a lounge. Tyson sat on the couch, feet propped up on a table, aiming a remote at a large TV in front of him. “Sit down.” They sat.

            “You can look around if you want,” Cal told Kieran in the entryway, “but it’s better if you don’t touch anything, and try to stay out of people’s way.” The teen nodded and continued taking in the splendor excitedly. His parents might have powers no human could fully comprehend, but even _their_ house wasn’t as grandiose as Mike Tyson’s. Meanwhile Cal moved to the lounge doorway to watch the show.

            In somewhat grainy black-and-white footage the four friends were stumbling and laughing their way across Tyson’s lawn, clearly thinking themselves terribly clever. They approached the pool in the backyard and Alan began peeing in it vigorously. On the screen, the others were enthusiastic about this activity—on the couches, less so.

            “Alan, that’s terrible!” they said in hypocritically chiding tones, shaking their heads. Tyson glared at the bearded man.

            “Maybe I should step outside,” Alan offered.

            “I think that would be best,” Tyson agreed.

            “We don’t really know him that well,” Stu insisted as Alan went out to the hall.

            The video switched to footage of the four men laughing hysterically as Tem walked the tiger down the driveway as though it were a large dog. Yes, somehow he’d had a feeling this part was all him. “Can I just say, I have never seen a more beautiful, elegant, regal creature,” he tried, sounding remarkably sincere, especially considering his judgment of the beast just a few minutes earlier. “I mean, it is truly amaz—“

            “Look at me, I’m f-----g the tiger!” video-Tem announced, lewdly and repeatedly miming the action while pushing the tiger into the back of the police car.

            “Oh G-d,” couch-Tem responded, as video-Tem went on and on. And on. And got worse.

            Cal couldn’t help it. He burst into laughter. It was just too ridiculous. And he was going to have a _lot_ of fun showing this to people they knew. Tem was the only one who could hear him and covered his sudden look in that direction with a sort of remorseful twitchiness that was not hard to fake under the glare of Mike Tyson.

            “What kind of person does that, man?” Tyson asked with disgust.

            “A sick man, obviously,” Tem replied quickly, still watching himself with horror. “Obviously I’m a very sick man. I have a lot of issues.”

            “Where’d you get the cop car?” Tyson asked the room at large.

            “I think we stole it,” Doug admitted.

            “Sweet,” Tyson approved, which cheered them considerably. The video finally, mercifully, ended and the remaining men immediately began babbling apologies. Tyson seemed to be feeling better about the whole thing, though, now that he had his tiger back, and he shrugged. “Like you said, you were f----d up,” he reminded them, “and we all do stupid stuff when we’re f----d up,” he added with a knowing grin.

            Cal wasn’t sure if it was really a good thing that Mike Tyson was seeing them as offenders on par with himself, but the men obviously weren’t going to raise any objections while still within reach of his right hook.

            Kieran came up behind Cal suddenly. “I think Alan can see me,” he whispered, and Cal turned away from the lounge with a frown.

            “There’s no need to whisper,” he said in a normal voice. “And there’s no way Alan can—“ He stopped when he saw the exiled man staring curiously in their direction. “There’s no way he can see us,” Cal asserted, but more slowly. He took several steps over to the side and after a moment, squinting as if trying to see through a fog bank, Alan turned his head to follow. “Okay, that’s weird,” Cal decided, upping the protection he and Kieran hid behind to be _truly_ invisible, and not merely outside the range of normal human perception. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Alan’s perception was _not_ normal.

            “Come on, we’re leaving,” Cal added as the four men were shown the door. Tyson seemed to enjoy the security video footage—Cal heard him watching it again and chuckling—which would make it difficult to erase it from his records, at least right away. He might have to employ a gradual memory fade as well as eliminating the hard evidence.

            When Doug, Stu, Alan, and Tem were back out on the stoop, surveying the slightly damaged Mercedes, Cal and Kieran reappeared to them. “Well, I’m glad the adventure is finally over,” Cal pointed out cheerfully. The tiger thing had been a little anticlimactic, frankly, and they were all more exhausted than elated. “I guess we can all go back to the hotel and relax a little, huh?”

            “Oh, that sounds good,” Doug sighed, walking around to the driver’s side. “I’m going to take another shower. And get some room service, I’m starving.”

            “Maybe I’ll call Jade and see if she’s busy,” Stu mused.

            “What if they won’t let us back in the hotel because we messed up the room?” Alan worried, the killjoy.

            “Oh, G-d, the room,” Doug remembered. “Tem, don’t worry, we’re all split the damages.” Tem, though a public schoolteacher, was the ‘friend with money’ who had put his credit card down for the room.

            “Don’t bother, it’s fine,” he assured them, as he always did, whether it was fine or not. “Besides, it didn’t look as bad as I first thought.”

            “You guys want a lift back to the hotel?” Doug asked Cal and Kieran. “We can squeeze you in.”

            “I’ll ride on Tem’s lap again if I have to,” Alan offered generously.

            “No, it’s okay,” Cal assured them, trying not to laugh at Tem’s expression. “We’ll catch a cab and meet you back there.”

            Once they had found their cab and were driving along behind the Mercedes, Cal pulled out his cell phone and dialed Gillian. “I think it’s _finally_ almost over,” he reported. “Just a couple loose ends to tie up. Oh, you would _not_ believe it,” he assured her. Then he started snickering involuntarily. “There’s some video I’m going to send you, but I want to be there when you watch it. Don’t let the children see it.” He glanced at Kieran next to him. “Oh, he’s loving it, it’s been terribly interesting for him—“

            They were stopped at a red light behind the Mercedes when suddenly, a huge SUV slammed into the side of the silver car, shoving it right off the street into a light pole.

            “S—t!” Cal swore. “Gotta go, love.” The cabbie was yelling as Cal scrambled out of the cab, something about crazy American drivers, but he shut up when two large men carrying drawn guns jumped out of the SUV. “Come on,” Cal told Kieran, right before the cabbie sped off and left them in the dust.

            Invisible once again, Cal gestured for Kieran to stay back on the sidewalk while he approached the car and made sure its occupants were reasonably okay. They would _not_ have been okay otherwise—the classic car wasn’t made to resist side impacts and had crumpled like tin foil. Then the glowing neon cowboy on top of the pole they’d hit came loose and swung down, ripping through the thin fabric of the convertible roof, missing Stu and Alan only through Cal’s intervention.

            Another man stepped out of the monstrous SUV—an almost comically small man in a preppy turtleneck and expensive suede jacket. For a moment Cal didn’t recognize him—with clothes on. Then he realized it was the Chinese man who’d been trapped in the trunk of the car which he had just crushed. “Get out of the car!” he ordered the four men impatiently.

            The door that had been hit was jammed shut and Tem had to maneuver himself out the window, with the none-too-gentle assistance of one of the gunmen. Cal glanced around quickly for witnesses but the area seemed strangely deserted. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the police to show up or not.

            Doug and Stu were yanked around to the street side and Alan tumbled awkwardly out of the door window. The Chinese man laughed at him, high-pitched and diabolically strange. “Fat boy fall down!” he commented blatantly, pointing.

            “Who the f—k are you, man?” Tem snapped, holding his ribs as he leaned against the car.

            The man affected surprise in an over-the-top pantomime. “You no remember Mr. Chow? Mr. Chow, big pal, kiss kiss?”

            The four men glanced at each other but there was no recognition. “We don’t remember anything that happened last night,” Doug explained reasonably.

            “Somebody drugged us,” Stu added, managing to not look at Alan.

            Mr. Chow did not really care. “Oh, you no remember? You no remember being _thieves_ and _robbers_? Thieves and robbers!” He snapped his fingers at one of the gunmen. “Carlo, explain.”

            “Well, all of you met Mr. Chow at the Bellagio last night,” Carlo began, in a ridiculously normal tone. Maybe this happened to him a lot. “You were playing blackjack, and Mr. Chow won eighty grand.”

            “Wow, congratulations,” Alan said in awe. The other gunman unexpectedly punched him in the stomach, causing him to double over in pain.

            The others protested. “Hey, don’t let the beard fool you, he’s a child!” Stu snapped in genuine outrage, despite his general attitude of disdain for Alan.

            Mr. Chow was giggling again. “Ha ha, it’s funny ‘cause he’s fat!” The giggle seemed very familiar to Cal for some reason, and he could see Tem was trying to place it as well.

            “Anyway, Mr. Chow put his chips in a purse,” Carlo went on, producing a bag remarkably like Alan’s satchel, “and then _you_ ”—he pointed at Alan—“grabbed it and took off.”

            Understanding blossomed on some faces. “I’m sure it was just an accident,” Doug placated. “Alan’s bag looks just like yours, he just took the wrong one by mistake.”

            The others nodded supportively, but Mr. Chow wasn’t buying it. “Accident?!” he repeated shrilly. “Mistake?! Then why when I run after you, you grab me?!” he demanded, looking directly at Tem.

            “Wait, _I_ did that?” Tem asked, clearly surprised.

            “You said you wanted to take him home with you,” Carlo reported gravely, “to be your lucky charm.”

            “Good G-d, he’s a leprechaun,” Cal finally realized.

            And Tem started to laugh. “Lucky charm? That’s funny!”

            “I—no—laughing!” Mr. Chow squawked, which was true. “Now you give me back eighty thousand dollars or I shoot you right here!”

            Many legendary stereotypes about leprechauns were true: small of stature, energetic, obsessed with money, nasty when provoked. The Irish part? Not so much. And no one who had heard a leprechaun’s laugh would ever forget it. Fortunately, when it came to detecting other magical beings, leprechauns weren’t very sensitive—their greed blinded them to most other things—and it didn’t seem like he had realized what Tem was. Although he had to be _something_ to overcome Mr. Chow’s magical defenses the night before—but the creature was probably more upset about his missing money.

            “Okay, okay, we can solve this,” Doug insisted. “Alan, just give him your bag. It must have the money in it.”

            But Alan was shaking his head hopelessly. “I don’t have it! I already looked for it this morning!”

            Cal glanced at his watch and saw that Caroline and Gloria would probably be at the hotel already. And frankly, he was getting tired of this adventure. “Look under the front seat,” he told Tem.

            “Look around in the car,” Tem insisted, sounding a little desperate. “Maybe we left it in the car!”

            “I watching you!” Mr. Chow warned as the men scrambled over the car, checking its nooks and crannies. “I no have time for your f-----g hide-and-seek games!”

            “You are a nasty little f----r, aren’t you?” Tem observed with irritation. “Lucky charm, my a-s!”

            “Tem,” Cal warned.

            “Oh, you want lucky a-s last night, uh-huh,” Mr. Chow taunted crudely. “You want to—“ The world suddenly went silent for Kieran as Mr. Chow launched into a colorful tirade that redefined the word ‘vulgar.’ Cal didn’t think the teen needed to hear that.

            “That’s disgusting,” Stu opined.

            “And not even legal,” Doug muttered.

            “And really mean!” Alan put in.

            “Oh, look, a rainbow,” Tem said, pointing behind Mr. Chow.

            The Chinese man yelped in sudden terror and practically leaped into the arms of Carlo. “Where?! Where?!” he shrieked.

            “Oh, my mistake,” Tem corrected innocently. “It was just a neon sign.”

            “Tem,” Cal sighed. “Would someone please look under the—“

            “I found it!” Alan announced triumphantly, pulling out a satchel. The nameless bodyguard snatched it away and tossed it to Carlo, who looked inside.

            “Here’s our chips,” he confirmed.

            “You take nasty fat boy bag,” Mr. Chow dismissed, flinging Alan’s satchel at him in the lamest throw imaginable.

            “Hey! You crushed my Skittles!” Alan complained, checking the contents. Stu shushed him.

            “Can we go now?” Doug asked firmly.

            Mr. Chow waved them off, no longer interested in them now that he had his money back. “Pffft. F—k off.”

            “Thanks,” Doug replied sarcastically, turning back to the battered car.

            Tem was the last one standing outside the vehicle, eyes narrowed as he stared at Chow fondling the casino chips in the bag. Suddenly, the little man seemed to convulse and upended the bag, flinging the chips all over the street. A fair number tumbled down a sewer drain. His reaction was catastrophic.

            “Let’s go!” Doug insisted, flooring the gas as Tem slid into the front seat.

            “How did you do that?” Cal asked, having no trouble talking to Tem even though they were speeding apart. “You’re blocked.”

            “Always got enough power to kick a leprechaun’s a-s,” Tem replied smugly. Though not enough power to send the message only to Cal—Doug gave him a concerned sideways glance.

            “Come on,” Cal told Kieran, walking determinedly away from the Chinese man throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the street.

            “Okay, so… _leprechaun_?” Kieran said after a long moment.

            “You shouldn’t skip Seminar so much,” Cal chided. “Eli just gave a lecture on common magical creatures.”

            “Yeah, but—“ Kieran looked back at the cursing, jumping man who was beating his bodyguards with the satchel in frustration. “Come on— _leprechauns_?”

            “You have to be prepared to deal with them,” Cal pointed out. “There’s a lot about the world that humans don’t understand, or choose not to see.”

            “What was the rainbow thing?” Kieran pressed. “When Uncle Tem said ‘rainbow’ and he flipped? Don’t, er, leprechauns _like_ rainbows?”

            “Come to class sometime,” Cal repeated by way of answer. Then he gave in. “Leprechauns are actually _terrified_ of rainbows, because those were the paths by which the ancient supernatural beings descended to earth. Nymphs used to leave their treasures at the end of rainbows so they could pick them up easily, and because they’d be safe from the leprechauns there.”

            “Wow,” Kieran replied after a moment. “That’s twisted.”

            “Humans interpret things in funny ways,” Cal agreed. “And here we are.” He stopped them outside the entrance to Caesars Palace.

            Kieran blinked. “Wait a minute, I thought we were way back—“

            “Did you think I was going to spend time walking the last three miles? No,” Cal told him. He approached two women who were waiting on the patio outside the hotel. “Hello, you must be Caroline and Gloria,” he greeted politely. “I’m Cal Wayland, Tem’s brother-in-law.”

            “Oh, right, he’s mentioned you,” Caroline agreed, because Cal made her think he had. She was a well-dressed black woman holding an equally well-dressed little boy in her arms—a paralegal with big dreams, if Cal recalled correctly.

            “And you must be my niece, Olivia!” he said cheerfully to a little girl in shorts and a slightly grungy tank top, who stood next to her identically-dressed mother. Gloria was a cocktail waitress, not exactly an uncommon profession in this town. “This is my son, Kieran.”

            “So where’s Tem, anyway?” Gloria wanted to know, after the introductions were made. “I’m supposed to be at work soon.”

            “I don’t know why I even agreed to come out here,” Caroline huffed. “It’ll be Max’s bedtime soon.”

            “Oh, that’s him,” Cal pointed out as the battered Mercedes rolled up. The women were not oblivious to its damage—or to Tem’s when he hoisted himself out of it.

            “Glo? Caroline? Oh my G-d, what are you guys doing here?” Tem asked, eyes wide with surprise. He was clearly torn between happiness and suspicion.

            “Daddy!” Olivia greeted, running for him, and Tem picked her up carefully, with a groan.

            “Ooh, don’t squeeze so tight, baby, Daddy’s got a couple cracked ribs,” he warned her.

            “Is that blood on your shirt?” Caroline demanded.

            “What happened to you, too much partying last night?” Gloria guessed.

            Tem artfully dodged both questions. “Uh, Gloria, Caroline, these are my friends, Doug, and Stu, and Alan,” he introduced.

            “That’s a cool headband,” Alan told Olivia sincerely.

            “Why don’t you guys go back up to the room and relax for a while?” Cal suggested to the other men. “And Tem and the kids can use the indoor playground for a couple hours.” He made sure it sounded like a good idea to them.

            “But remember, at eight there’s the show,” Tem reminded everyone.

            Doug, Stu, and Alan nodded. But Cal demanded, “What show?”

            “We’re gonna see Cirque du Soleil at El Dorado tonight,” Tem told him as the others nodded.

            “Should be awesome,” Doug enthused.

            “And family-friendly,” added Stu.

            “I heard they turn into unicorns,” offered Alan.

            “They _don’t_ turn into unicorns,” Doug corrected. It sounded like it wasn’t the first time.

            Cal stepped closer to Tem and spoke so the others wouldn’t hear. “You’re _banned_ from this city,” he reminded the other man impatiently.

            But Tem was feeling much better now that most of the mess was cleaned up _and_ he was seeing his kids. “Relax, man,” he advised. “We’re gonna head back to Pasadena first thing in the morning. Come on, we deserve a treat for getting through all this. I bet we can score tickets for you two,” he tempted.

            “Really?” Kieran asked with interest.

            Cal rolled his eyes. “Don’t count on it,” he said sharply. “Starkmoon won’t have it. You’ve got maybe a couple more hours, tops.”

            Tem set Olivia on her feet and took Max from Caroline, a determined look in his eyes. “Well, we’ll talk in a couple hours, then,” he decided, turning them towards the hotel entrance. “Come on, kids, let’s go play.”

            Cal watched them all go with narrowed eyes. He should have expected resistance, really. It wasn’t in Tem to go quietly to his fate. “Um, so what are we doing now?” Kieran asked gamely at Cal’s elbow.

            He glanced over the teen and decided he looked tired. “You can stay here with your uncle and cousins,” he said. “I have a couple other errands to run to clean up his mess.”

            “Like what?”

            “Like the Crazy Horse,” Cal told him. “Jade said they did a lot of damage there. And you’re not going, your mother would _not_ approve.” Kieran couldn’t manage to look _too_ disappointed—that’s how tired he was.

            Twenty minutes later, Cal’s phone rang and he sighed when he saw who the caller was. “Hi, Lio.”

            “ _Where are you right now?_ ” Nightbird opened with.

            “I’m in Las Vegas, in a strip club,” Cal told him dryly, “paying a bill for four thousand dollars in damages caused by your brother-in-law.” At least in part.

            “ _Something is coming_ ,” Lio warned him ominously.

            Cal couldn’t stop himself from glancing around. “Could you be more specific?”

            “ _Something dark is coming to the city of gold_ ,” Nightbird intoned. “ _Dark, and powerful, but with—a ray of light at its heart_.”

            Cal gave it a second. “Uh-huh. And what would happen if I asked you to be _less_ specific?” He was really not a fan of the whole vague prophecy thing.

            “ _That’s what I saw_ ,” Lio told him, unconcerned with his lack of faith.

            “We met a leprechaun already,” Cal informed him. “You sure you’re not just behind?”

            “ _Leprechauns are beneath my notice_ ,” Lio dismissed.

            “Right. Look, did you call Starkmoon about this?” Cal questioned. “Because Tem and I are gonna be out of here in just a couple hours. I’m to haul him back to New York to face the elders.”

            “ _You’re very generous to still bother with him_ ,” Lio noted, in a tone that said he didn’t find such generosity admirable.

            “Yes, well, several of you have washed your hands of him, so…” Cal shrugged. “Anyway, Starkmoon can deal with your dark blob.”

            “ _I think you would be wise to stay and assist_ ,” Lio advised. “ _I see a part in it for your family_.”

            “You just made that up now,” Cal accused. “Hey, I’m sending you some video, it may make even _you_ laugh. Don’t let Krista see it, I don’t think she’d take it in the proper spirit. Hang on, I’ve got another call coming in.” He checked the caller ID. “Bonebright,” he revealed, suddenly more serious.

            “ _Dark, but with a ray of light_ ,” Lio reminded him smugly, before hanging up.

            “Are you calling to warn me about something?” Cal asked his new caller.

            “ _Aren’t I always?_ ” Demetrius replied dryly. “ _You’re not very good at casual chats_.”

            Cal supposed that _had_ been a foolish question. “Nightbird beat you to it.”

            “ _I’ve never been able to figure out speed dial_ ,” Demetrius confessed. “ _Do you want to hear it or not?_ ”

            “Okay, go ahead.”

            Demetrius cleared his throat. “ _The ring of the sun will be displaced by a ring of fire, and from the darkness will come the beating heart_.”

            “The beating heart of what?” Cal prompted when nothing else was forthcoming.

            “ _I don’t know_ ,” Demetrius shrugged. “ _Just a beating heart_.”

            “Gruesome,” Cal commented. “Well, thanks for that,” he added, failing to sound very grateful.

            “ _You should stick around Vegas and see what happens_ ,” Bonebright suggested, as Nightbird had. “ _It sounds very important. You’ll be disappointed if you miss it_.”

            “Right,” Cal sighed. Why had he dared to think this adventure would end with the tiger and the leprechaun?

 

**

 

            “Bye-bye, baby!” Tem said, waving through the window of the cab to Olivia. “I love you!” The little girl waved back cheerfully before the cab sped away from the hotel and another car rolled up to take its place.

            “Here, let me get that for you,” Cal offered, passing the keys from the valet to Caroline and slipping him a tip.

            “Thanks for bringing him to see me,” Tem told the woman, reluctant to let Max go. “Look, I know I’m not what you were hoping for from a dad, but—“

            Caroline carefully took the sleeping child back. “Let’s not talk about that right now,” she suggested, but not in a mean way. “I know you love him, and that’s the first thing.”

            “I’m gonna come up here more often,” Tem started to vow. He always felt guilty when he saw how much the kids had grown in between his visits.

            “Don’t make promises,” Caroline countered, tactfully leaving off ‘that you can’t keep.’ “If you come up more, you can see him.”

            Tem nodded, forcing himself to be content with that. He had screwed up so many times he could hardly blame people for not wanting to trust him—he was lucky they were still speaking to him. “Bye, Max,” he said, kissing the little boy’s head before Caroline put him in the car. Tem watched them go until he couldn’t possibly distinguish the car from any of the others. Then he turned to Cal. “Hey, thanks, man,” he told him, giving him an unexpected hug.

            “What for?” Cal replied modestly.

            “I know it must’ve been you who got them to bring the kids here,” Tem pointed out, still clasping his shoulders. “I really appreciate that. Not to mention all the other s—t you’ve been cleaning up for me today,” he added with a smirk. Then he grew serious again. “I’m sorry, Cal, I really am, and I’m gonna—“

            “I’m going to have to go with Caroline on this one,” Cal interrupted lightly. “Don’t make promises.”

            Tem nodded again. He didn’t know himself whether he would have been able to _keep_ any of those promises, anyway. “It’s just—I think it’s getting worse,” he sighed, staring off into the busy city with its neon lights, rushing cars, and shouting people. As much as he liked being around them, being a friend and a parent to them, he could never forget the huge gulf that separated them from him. “I try to do everything I can to stop thinking about her,” he went on, “and I just can’t.” No matter how close he became to any human, they would never know more than a tiny fraction of his life, who he really was.

            Cal squeezed his shoulder, recognizing the look in his eyes. “I don’t think the goal should be never thinking of her,” he advised gently, and the other man nodded slowly. It was all Cal could say—he had never been in a position like Tem’s before.

            “Well anyway,” Tem sighed. “So, how are we getting to New York?”

            Cal frowned at him. “I thought you wanted to stay for the show.”

            Tem shrugged. “Might as well get the punishment over with,” he muttered. “I would really like to be back in Pasadena next weekend for Doug’s wedding.”

            “Well, as it happens,” Cal admitted, “I’ve been advised to stay in Vegas a little longer, by no less than _two_ of our prophetic families.”

            Tem rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I heard about that. That’s gotta be more Tony’s problem, don’t you think?”

            “I don’t know,” Cal shrugged. “Here’s your phone, by the way.” He handed Tem the cell phone that had formerly been crushed in the street.

            The other man took it gladly. “Thanks. Now I can get the news without one of those skanky Starkmoon nymphs licking my ear.”

            “I’m about to ask them to find me two extra tickets to the show,” Cal warned him, dialing his own phone. Nymphs had notoriously bad senses of humor. “Hi, Tony, did you hear about the—Yeah, I don’t get it, either. I know, exactly, does it come written on a fortune cookie or what? They couldn’t describe it any better? True enough. Still, would you mind if Tem and I stuck around for the night? I know, believe me, I know, I’ve been running around all day working on it. He and his friends will be on their best behavior tonight, they want to go to the Cirque du Soleil show—“ Cal paused suddenly, then turned to address Tem as well. “Cirque du Soleil. Ring of sun,” he realized.

            “It’s at the El Dorado, the city of gold!” Tem added excitedly.

            “Yeah, I think that would be a good idea,” Cal said into the phone before hanging up. “Tony says he’s going to come to the show as well,” he informed Tem.

            “Great,” he sighed. “Why do I have the feeling that my second night in Vegas is going to be as exciting as my first?”

 

**

 

            That evening, Doug was still beet red and Stu was still missing a tooth, but a few hours’ rest and showers had transformed the men into almost normal-looking specimens—maybe not quite as good as they probably looked when they had first gone out the night before, but almost. Despite his blocked powers Tem looked particularly sharp in an expensive and stylish black suit, no tie, and more than one woman gave him an appreciative glance as he took his seat in the theatre.

            “Don’t you own any other clothes?” he teased Cal, who was wearing the same mid-range, unmemorable outfit he’d had on all day, and getting grease on it from the popcorn he was eating as well.

            “Sorry, this is my picking-up-my-deadbeat-brother-in-law suit,” Cal shot back. “Hey, guys,” he added, leaning around Tem to wave at Doug, Stu, and Alan. “Feeling better?”

            “Ever been to a Cirque show?” Tem asked Kieran, who was consuming a huge puff of cotton candy.

            The teen shook his head. “No. They came to St. Louis once, but my mom said it was too far to travel during harvest season.”

            Tem looked confused. “Your mom?”

            “Adoptive,” Cal said under his breath. Kieran was still getting used to the idea of his biological family.

            “Oh.”

            “Here’s Tony,” Cal pointed out, standing quickly.

            Tony Starkmoon entered the theatre surrounded by beautiful nymphs, his three-piece suit practically flashing its astronomical price tag on the back in neon lights. Tony couldn’t do anything quietly—Cal didn’t think the spotlights had _actually_ singled him out while the announcer called his name, but you kind of imagined that had happened. He had a way of drawing everyone’s attention and he didn’t mind one bit. Vegas was perfect for him.

            “Alright, _you_ need to stop insulting my nymphs,” was the first thing he said upon reaching Tem. “Nymphs have feelings, too, you know, very tender feelings. Very loud, whiny, vengeful, unproductive feels. So, just zip it.” Before Tem could respond he went on to embrace Cal. “Now, you guys should come out more often,” he invited, “bring the kids, stay at the Stars  & Stripes.” That was Tony’s tacky, family-friendly hotel and playland down the block, as opposed to his tacky, adult-oriented hotel and casino, Mount Olympus. The Greek god theme was not subtle.

            Tony reached over to glad-hand Tem’s friends, who felt they should be dazzled by his presence even if they didn’t know who he was. “Hi, how ya doing? Sure, nice to meet you. So who wants a lovely nymph to hold their hand when the scary clowns come out?” The stylishly-dressed young women automatically went to Stu, Doug, and Alan, who didn’t seem to mind.

            “Clowns?” Alan repeated fearfully, clutching his nymph’s hand in advance.

            “I’m Ernestine,” she introduced, tugging on his beard affectionately. “Aren’t you adorable!”

            Shaking his head at the poor taste of nymphs, Tony finally turned to Kieran. “So how old are you, kid?” he asked affectionately.

            “Fifteen,” the boy replied, glancing at the beautiful women flanking him with a mix of fascination and nervousness.

            “No, I mean really,” Tony said.

            “Fifteen,” Kieran insisted in confusion.

            Tony glanced at Cal, who nodded. Then he snapped his fingers. “Sorry, ladies.” They stepped away from the teen immediately. “Anyone want to sit with Tem? No, I thought not.”

            “Shunned by nymphs,” Cal tsked his brother-in-law.

            “Not for the first time,” Tem muttered darkly.

            Tony settled down behind them with his attractive escorts—somehow the nymphs didn’t actually take up seats, although they weren’t sitting on anyone’s laps (at least, not yet). “So when’s the big, stinky cloud of evil supposed to hit?” he asked Tem and Cal. “Everyone at home is all worked up over it. Gwyn wanted to dash the kids off to the ranch. And I’ve got visitors coming in.”

            “You know what we know,” Tem reminded him.

            The lights dimmed and the show began—a marching band made of clowns and characters with grotesque humps on their backs and exaggerated noses, singing in a language foreign to most of the audience. “G-d, it’s just like the court pageants in the Dark Ages,” Tony whispered, leaning forward to steal some of Cal’s popcorn. “When does someone get beheaded?” Cal shushed him pointedly.

            The acrobats bouncing over each other on trampolines were excellent; the contortionists who stood on each other’s heads—simultaneously—entertainingly disturbing; and the clowns were _almost_ funny instead of scary. Alan didn’t look like he was letting go of Ernestine anytime soon, though. In fact Cal had almost forgotten why, exactly, they had stayed when suddenly he noticed—

            Actually the nymphs noticed it first and tensed up around them, and then Cal smelled it, too—it was an evil smell, not disgusting like one might think but rather chemical-y, like something you weren’t supposed to breathe in. Tony and Tem noticed it as well and immediately began looking around, searching for the source. “Over there,” Cal said, pointing towards one exit on the floor where a shadow flickered unnaturally.

            “And there, too,” Tem added, looking in the opposite direction.

            “Holy s—t,” Tony exclaimed, watching the smoky clouds coalesce. “Old Ones!”

            Immediately Cal grabbed a confused Kieran and squeezed him between himself and Tem. Old Ones always went for the young, the new, those whose powers hadn’t yet matured. “Watch him,” he ordered the Starkmoon nymphs, although there really wasn’t much they could do. They flung their arms around the teen protectively, though.

            “Uh, what’s going—“ Doug started to ask, but he was cut off by a loud drumroll that ended as a spotlight winked on high in the air, illuminating a figure on a platform far above the crowd. Oddly, however, it was not a person in the skintight, spangled costume of a trapeze artist but rather a woman in a flowing white gown, who seemed surprised to find herself in that precarious position and immediately crouched down, clutching the platform. Her face finally turned towards them.

            “Maya!” Tem said, standing and staring at her with shock.

            “What? No, that can’t be—“ Cal took another look. “Oh my G-d. Maya.”

            “Maya?” Doug repeated, recognizing the name.

            Tem started to push his way through the crowd down to the floor. “Maya!” he shouted up at her. “Maya!”

            “Tem, don’t—“ Cal tried, still eyeing the smoky shapes that approached them, but the other man paid no attention to anyone but the woman on the platform as he raced across the floor and started to climb the long ladder up to her.

            “He needs his powers back,” Cal said to Tony.

            “Call the elders!” Tony ordered a nymph urgently. The audience, not to mention Tem’s friends, gasped as his foot slipped off one rung in his haste.

            “Get down,” Cal told his son, pushing him to the sticky floor behind the seats. “And _stay_ down.”

            “That dude is seriously ugly,” Stu commented to Doug as a bald man with exaggerated features appeared to solidify out of the smoke and stood right in front of them. “Cool special effects, though.”

            “I don’t think he’s a special effect,” Doug realized slowly. Alan wrapped his arms tightly around the equally frightened Ernestine.

            “What do you want?” Cal asked the creature sharply, keeping an eye on the second one that approached from the other side. “You’ve not been invited here. What do you want?”

            As he spoke the creature reached out a hand tipped with unnaturally long fingernails and slowly ripped through a program held by someone in the front row. Everyone stared for a moment, motionless, then the creature’s eyes blazed and the humans scattered, screaming.

            “Do you _know_ these guys?” Doug demanded of Cal.

            “You can’t negotiate with Old Ones,” Tony snapped. “Get out of my territory!” he shouted clearly.

            “There’s more up there!” Alan noticed, pointing towards the ceiling. “They’re gonna get Tem!” Dark clouds whirled around him as he neared the top of the ladder, dislodging his grip.

            “F—k it,” Tony decided, shooting an arc of blue energy from his palm at the nearest creature. And the battle was on.

            Cal tried to keep the ones in the air away from Tem with his own bolts of energy, but the Old Ones were harder to target in their cloud form and he didn’t want to risk hitting Tem or the woman he’d finally reached. Meanwhile the two creatures on the ground bared their fangs and launched their own attack, no doubt sensing the young being hiding on the ground. Humans were of no consequence to them and those who didn’t flee risked being tossed aside like rag dolls. Nymphs couldn’t offer much more resistance.

            “We could really use some assistance here!” Cal shouted at Tony.

            “They’re clogging the lines!” Tony reminded him, which meant they couldn’t send out for help, and the nymphs couldn’t spirit Kieran away to safety.

            “Did Tem get unblocked?!”

            “I don’t know!”

            “Get out of here!” Cal finally ordered Tem’s human friends, who were apparently in too much shock to move. He fired off another round at the clouds that were whirling around the high-rise platform. “Go! Get out!”

            Doug started to stand. “Yeah, I think he’s—“ He and Stu ran into Alan, who was frozen in place, staring down one of the creatures who stretched its mouth impossibly wide and bellowed fiercely.

            “You’re _mean_!” Alan declared, and threw his soda in its face.

            Cal did a double-take, certain they were about to be fried. Then he looked a third time when he saw the Old One just standing there as if confused, watching as part of its flesh was eaten away. “Oh my G-d,” he realized. “It must be all the modern chemicals!”

            “They can be killed by _junk food_?!” Tony demanded in disbelief.

            “Nothing _kills_ them,” Cal corrected, “but it might weaken them.”

            Doug, Stu, and Alan all looked at each other as if to double-check, then nodded. One of them shouted, “Let’s get ‘em!” and they began pelting the two creatures nearest them with leftover popcorn, nachos, sodas, and pretzels. Alan even sacrificed his beloved Skittles, which he poured out from pack after pack that he’d apparently brought with him. Kieran popped up and hurled the cups of melted ice cream and broken cookies he’d been lying in.

            Under this onslaught the two creatures began backing away towards the center of the floor. Then suddenly they poofed into clouds of smoke and joined the others spinning around the platform high in the air. Cal wasn’t entirely sure this was a good thing. He’d lost sight of Tem for several minutes now and had no idea what was happening under that veil of smoke.

            Suddenly the dark sphere exploded, light bursting from its heart and flinging the smoke outwards. An arc of golden-orange flame shot from Tem’s palm and flowed around him in a circle, forcing the black shapes to spin around it. Tony and Cal instantly understood what he was doing and joined in. At Cal’s command flecks of dust and dirt were drawn from all corners of the auditorium as if to a giant vacuum cleaner, then swirled around the smoke shapes in a gritty ribbon; for Tony’s part, loose change, bits of concession tinfoil, and even loose bolts were yanked from the seats, melting and elongating into silvery bubbles that added another ring around the belt of smoke.

            “We need another element!” Cal shouted above the din.

            “No s—t!” Tony agreed.

            Cal risked a glance around at what they had to work with. “Wooden seats,” he observed. “Maybe together we could—“

            “Doubt it!” Tony snapped unhelpfully.

            “ _Try_ , at least!” Cal ordered, and the seats in the theatre started rattling and shaking as they fought to free themselves from their restraints.

            Then suddenly there was another rattling and shaking, accompanied by a high-pitched squeal like the whistle of a teakettle, and the concrete wall burst in on them, water gushing from a broken pipe. The ring of water took shape awkwardly, wobbling as it rose through the air. Tony and Cal looked at each other in confusion, then back over their shoulders to see Kieran standing there, intensely focused on the spinning wheel of water. As soon as it hit the other three, enclosing the smoke ring on all sides, the entire mass began whirling faster and faster, the colors blurring together with Tem crouching now in the middle, shielding the woman. Then there was a _snap_ and a flash of light, and suddenly the spinning elements, and the smoke, were gone.

            The silence was deafening. Then Alan let out a triumphant, “Yeah!” and started clapping and whistling, and soon the remaining audience—mostly in the sections far away from Cal and the water—followed suit. Tony gave a dramatic bow and waved.

            Cal went back to his son. “Are you okay?” he asked the boy, who looked a bit dazed. “Here, sit down. Well done. You know, your mother has a water spirit as well.”

            “Uh-huh,” Kieran answered dully. Doug and Stu clapped the boy on the back, still celebrating their victory, and Cal felt he was in safe hands for the moment.

            Tony was already snapping orders into his cell phone. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a clean-up crew, all the video footage pulled, some memory wipes, and, like, an exorcist or something to get the smell out of here.”

            “May I go home?” a sniffling nymph asked, her make-up smeared and dress torn.

            “Yes, you may,” Tony allowed. “And get me some fresh nymphs,” he added into the phone. “These are all totally freaked. No, we’ve got a _situation_ here, I can’t deal with houseguests!”

            “Oh, Alan, you were _so_ brave!” exclaimed Ernestine, who’d stayed beside him the whole time. “ _So_ heroic!” She threw her arms around him and kissed his furry cheek.

            Tem appeared, literally, in the middle of the floor with his arms wrapped around the woman. As they headed quickly for the seats Cal saw they weren’t alone—there were two small children with them. “Hey, Cal, you remember Maya,” Tem said with forced casualness, sliding his jacket around the woman’s shoulders.

            “Maya, lovely to see you again,” Cal greeted, helping her over the barrier separating the stage floor from the seats. “Nena, come here, darling, do you remember me? I’m your Uncle Cal,” he said to the little girl, taking her in his arms. Tem held the younger boy against him tightly.

            “Well!” Tony announced, clicking his phone shut. “I need to get back home. And I think all of you should come with me. There’s a bunch of paperwork to be done.”

            “Sure,” Tem agreed easily. He seemed almost taller, somehow, more in command than he had in a long time. “Guys, come here,” he called to his friends. “We’re gonna spend the night at Tony’s place, okay? You guys were awesome!” And in the blink of an eye they all found themselves standing not in the El Dorado’s battered and half-empty theatre, but in the penthouse of a hotel that was even more palatial than the villa at Caesars Palace.

            Tony staggered a little at the sudden transport. “Stop showing off,” he ordered Tem grouchily, then, smirking again, he added, “Palmfire.”

            “Tony, _what_ is going on?” a blond man demanded, marching into the room. He was tall and solidly built, with a stern look on his face. One got the impression he didn’t smile much. “They nymphs are crying, the phone’s ringing off the hook—“

            “I’ll fill you in,” Tony promised, starting to follow him out of the room. At the doorway he turned back to the others. “Make yourselves at home, my nymphs are your nymphs,” he tossed off, “except for you three,” he added, pointing at Doug, Stu, and Alan, “don’t touch anything, because I saw what you did to the last hotel room you stayed in.” With that, he left.

            “So…” Doug said into the ensuing silence, and Tem finally looked up from murmuring to Maya and the children.

            “Right,” Tem agreed, taking a breath as though he were about to explain everything. Then the three humans collapsed like puppets with cut strings, to be caught by a different nymph each. “Put them to bed, please,” Tem told them. “I’ll figure out what to say to them in the morning,” he told Cal with a shrug.

            “They’re _so_ handsome,” Doug’s nymph hinted loudly.

            “He’s getting married,” Tem warned her. “And he _is_ married. Sort of,” he said of Stu. Between Jade and Melissa his friend didn’t need further complications. “That one’s free, though,” he added cheekily, referring to Alan.

            Ernestine grinned triumphantly and mocked her man-less sisters. “Ha!” The other two nymphs looked at Alan and then each other as if to say that they really didn’t think he was much of a prize. “He’s my cuddle lamb!” Ernestine insisted dreamily, picking Alan up as easily as a teddy bear. The three carried their burdens out of the room.

            “Wow, some things you just can’t unsee,” Tem quipped, looking slightly disturbed.

            “Could I please have some explanation?” Kieran suddenly asked in a pained tone, as if he couldn’t stand it any longer.

            “Oh, sorry, buddy,” Tem told him with concern, causing a spacious curved sofa that did not match Tony’s décor at all to appear just behind the teen. “Come on, let’s all sit down. There you go, big boy.” This was directed at Teo, whom Tem lifted onto the couch beside his sister. Maya sat on the other side of the children, still well within reach of Tem.

            “Where are we, exactly?” she asked, clearly in need of an explanation herself.

            “Las Vegas, Nevada,” Cal answered matter-of-factly. “In the west of the American continent, north of your homeland.” A paper map, all beige tones and thick lines, appeared in the air to orient her. Quickly it flashed through several hundred years of territorial rearrangements, a rapid-fire history lesson, before coalescing into the modern United States map.

            “Oh,” she replied slowly. “I’ve been gone a long time.” She looked over at Tem in concern and squeezed his hand. He tried to smile reassuringly, but she was right—it _had_ been a long time and he couldn’t honestly say he’d been alright.

            “Where’ve you been?” Cal went on curiously, trying to keep them on track. “Do you know?”

            “Somewhere cold, and dark,” Maya told him, staring out the floor-to-ceiling window without really seeing the glittering cityscape below. “I was half-asleep, and shadows moved all around me.” Tem reached over and stroked her cheek as if unable to fully reassure himself that she was real. She looked over at him and smiled. “But sometimes there would be a flash of light in the void, and I would wake up a little more, and know it was you.”

            This surprised Tem. “Me? When?”

            Of course she couldn’t give precise dates. “I don’t know. But I could feel you through the cold and the darkness. You chipped away at my prison. And then suddenly there was a huge burst of energy and I was finally able to break free and come to you.”

            “Sounds like Old Ones to me,” Tony observed, appearing suddenly behind the couch. “Thanks for rearranging my furniture, by the way.”

            “What are Old Ones?” Kieran asked helplessly.

            Cal was obviously thinking something over but he turned at the boy’s question. “Oh, the Old Ones are the spirits that inhabited the Earth before our kind came along,” he answered off-hand. “We kind of drove them out of the supernatural being business. Understandably they’ve always been a bit resentful.”

            “They like the young and tender members of the herd,” Tony added dramatically. He nodded at Maya. “That’s probably why they went for you—your mortal birth made you vulnerable.”

            Leave it to Tony to just lay it out there. “It won’t happen again,” Tem declared fiercely, drawing her closer.

            He had no idea how he was going to make good on that promise, Cal suspected—but he also suspected he was right. “You’re stronger now,” he observed of Maya. “The two of you maintained a connection even when the Old Ones had you. Like a rope connecting you between worlds. And,” he added slowly, chewing over a theory, “every time _you_ used your powers”—addressing Tem—“the connection strengthened, until Maya was able to escape.”

            Tem’s eyes widened. “You mean, last night, when I was—all that crazy stuff—with the tiger and jumping off the building and—“ Cal was nodding. “Oh my G-d. _That’s_ what brought Maya back?”

            “That’s the power of Vegas, baby,” Tony said proudly.

            Tem glared at him. “You _banned_ me from Vegas!”

            “I take it back,” Tony shrugged easily.

            “What about a tiger?” Maya asked in confusion.

            “Where do, um, _we_ come from?” Kieran asked suddenly. It seemed to take a lot for him to finally include himself in their number, but after tonight he could hardly deny it.

            “Whales,” Tony replied sagely. “Seriously.”

            “We’re Welsh?”

            “No, like the animal.”

            “Look here,” Cal told the boy, putting an arm around him. “You helped us defeat the Old Ones. You remember what happened? Tem had them in a ring of fire, and then Tony added metal and I added earth, like dirt. But we needed a fourth element to contain them.”

            “And not an element like that crazy periodic table,” Tony put in. “You need one of the really basic, essential substances of the earth. And you very cleverly brought in water. Which totally saved our a-ses, because Cal and I couldn’t really have done the wood thing along with our other elements. You can usually only handle one at a time.”

            “Water’s a difficult one to control,” Cal told the teen encouragingly. “You did _very_ well, especially considering that you haven’t had any training.”

            “Well, he’s gonna need all the training he can get,” Tony said darkly. “That thing with Nightbird in Nebraska?” he reminded Cal. “Has the stink of Old Ones all over. They’re getting restless. We knew they would eventually. And on the news right now, there’s some crazy flooding in Colorado—very suspicious.”

            “Where did the Old Ones come from?” Kieran tried gamely, hoping eventually he would get an answer that made sense to him.

            “Rocks,” Tony answered blithely.

            “I’m not saying things couldn’t have gone better between us,” Cal insisted, addressing the whole group. “But the truth is, the Old Ones wanted to live on the _fear_ of humans, and we wanted to live on their _love_ , to take care of them.” Tem knew all about that, the love of mortals; maybe his ways were more true to their essential purpose than Cal had given him credit for.

            “You don’t know what the _truth_ is,” Tony scoffed. “You weren’t around then. Even our _parents_ weren’t around then. That was strictly Founder stuff back then, and it’s all legend anyway.”

            Cal turned back to Kieran. “Um, any other questions?” he asked awkwardly.

            “You have no idea,” the teen replied flatly. Cal could see his point.

            “Well, we better put the kids to bed,” Tem announced, standing. He scooped Nena up in his arms, her head drooping on his shoulder. The little boy, Teo, was already out cold and didn’t wake when Maya picked him up.

            Cal stood as well and embraced Maya lightly, kissing her cheek. “I’m really glad you’re back,” he told her sincerely, and she smiled gratefully.

            “Thank you for taking care of Tem while I was gone,” she replied in kind.

            “Oh please,” Tem scoffed in the background.

            “You’re the only one who ever had patience with him,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

            “Hey, I let him come to Vegas,” Tony put in hopefully. “Several times! And I only complained this once. Really.”

            “Good night,” Maya told him. She looked around Cal to Kieran. “And thank you.” With that, the newly-restored Palmfire family left.

            “You should get some sleep, too,” Cal told his son. “We’ll have to go back to New York in the morning and explain ourselves to your grandparents.” Not a prospect he relished, even if things had worked out in the end.

 

~One week later

 

            Tracy Garner was used to being one of the better-looking women in any room. She was intelligent, poised, confident, personable, and stylish. When she went out with her friends she often had cause to complain about all the ‘losers’ hitting on her.

            But if she’d gone out with the women currently sitting around her parents’ patio table, she would’ve been the _last_ of the bunch to be noticed.

            Jade was bubbly, blond, sweet-faced, sunny—a real good-time gal, and not just because she used to be a stripper-slash-escort. Well, she was still holding onto her stripping job at the Crazy Horse, but she and Stu had never gotten around to getting their marriage annulled and were trying out the dating thing, so it had seemed prudent for her to set aside her escort duties for the moment. Melissa was out of the picture, which none of Stu’s friends had shed a tear about—the woman was a controlling harpy. Jade already made Stu so much happier—and he wasn’t even embarrassed to smile anymore, since Tem had magically fixed his missing tooth.

            Maya had been stunning and regal as a mortal and her beauty was refined and enhanced even more by her supernatural status (though of course Tracy didn’t realize where the boost came from). She was more reserved than Jade, true, more cautious about this world she wasn’t fully familiar with—she didn’t want to offend anyone or embarrass her husband. Not that anything could have made Tem displeased with her—it was clear to everyone how much he adored her, even if no one could really understand when they’d met or how they could have two children together.

            And as for Ernestine—well, you couldn’t argue with the beauty of a nymph. She was like a supermodel from some exotic land—was she Brazilian or Polish or Thai or North African or all of the above? Her beauty was startling, almost unnatural, like something you would see in a carefully airbrushed advertisement, not in real life. And beyond that, every drop of make-up, every scrap of clothing, every sparkle of jewelry, was perfect, as if she’d been kitted out by experts right before stepping in front of the camera.

            And it was Alan that she always had her arm around. He was pleased, of course, but if there had ever been a phase when he couldn’t believe his incredible good fortune, it had passed quickly.

            Not that Doug was complaining about being ‘stuck’ with Tracy, not at all. They were getting married tomorrow, his sunburn had been magically cured, and his almost-father-in-law’s beloved classic car had been magically repaired. As far as he was concerned, life was going very well indeed, and his recent misadventures had only reinforced how lucky he really was.

            Tracy, who had not shared in the experiences of the others in Las Vegas, was finding it all a little difficult to believe. But she wasn’t a jealous woman; she’d come around in time.

            “So, you have a baby, right?” she checked with Jade politely.

            “Oh, yes, his name’s Tyler,” the blond gushed. “My roommate is watching him for me this weekend. Gosh, I was up all night pumping myself dry for his bottles!”

            “I know the feeling,” Tracy’s mom said wearily, sipping her martini.

            “And Stu is _such_ a great dad!” Jade added cheerfully, which really should have been weird but somehow wasn’t.

            “He’s a smart little guy,” Stu agreed, which really should have been fake but somehow wasn’t.

            “And you guys are buying a house?” Tracy confirmed, turning to Tem and Maya.

            “Yeah, in that half-empty subdivision north of town,” he replied easily. “The apartment’s just too small for the kids.” Actually he was buying _all_ of the empty houses in the subdivision; he had a territory to reestablish, after all, and he preferred to do it in a neighborhood filled with humans, not an isolated mansion or high-rise apartment building like some of his kind.

            Tracy turned to the woman on her brother’s arm, who was so beautiful she was almost difficult to look at. “And, um, Ernestine, you’re moving here from Las Vegas?”

            “That’s right!” Ernestine agreed buoyantly. “Santa Fe is _so_ much more beautiful than Las Vegas. Plus, I want to be near my cuddle lamb!” Alan nodded sagely, as if this were only reasonable.

            “And what do you do for a living?” Tracy questioned. She didn’t want to seem rude, but really, something didn’t compute here.

            “I buy and sell things on eBay!” Ernestine reported excitedly. “They have _so much stuff_ there! It’s crazy!”

            Ernestine _did_ frequent eBay, though as a hobby and with far more buying than selling. In reality she had volunteered to be a Palmfire nymph and assist Tem in his supernatural endeavors. Having nymphs again made a huge difference in keeping his life in order, even if they _did_ tend to needle him about the rude comments he’d made earlier. They’d forget about those in a few decades. Ernestine’s attachment to Alan seemed real enough, though, weird as it was. From her perspective it was hardly a lifelong commitment, though. More like acquiring a goldfish.

            “Huh,” Tracy finally said, looking around the table. “I guess I should be glad _Doug_ didn’t come back from Vegas with a new woman!”

            Her comment was slightly pointed and three of the men rushed to reassure her that that would never have happened. Alan, however, just giggled mischievously, as if he fully agreed with her.


End file.
